ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the child’s reading ability can be developed within the common programme of junior schools, so that the atmosphere of excitement to be found in an enriched environment is sharpened by a more sophisticated use of the opportunities. The reading connected with project work was frequently too loose and uncontrolled and therefore lacked rigour, making very little demand upon discriminative reading. Word-recognition sounds such a dull pursuit, and perhaps that is why it has had very little place in the junior school. The dictionary work varied from indescribably bad to a fairly exacting study of word meanings. As the child progresses through the junior school the exercises should become more demanding and engrossing. Increasingly fine discriminations in meaning would have to be made, and at the end of the exercise the child should have learnt something of interest or value. A different form of exercise in comprehension was to be found in work on projects and topics.
