ABSTRACT
Paired reading was first described by Roger Morgan in 1976 in the journal Child: care, health and development and later by Morgan and Elizabeth Lyon in 'A preliminary report on a technique for parental tuition of reading-retarded children' in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. The technique is said to be based upon behavioural learning theory in which reading difficulty is seen as lack of performance skill probably caused by a multiplicity of factors, about which no explanatory comment was attempted. The basic ideas underlying paired reading were developed by Keith Topping who was, at that time, an educational psychologist working for the Kirklees authority in Huddersfield. Reading together at the tutee's pace calls for some skill learning on the part of the tutor, whilst giving praise also calls for discretion and fine judgment, especially in such matters as an increase in the span of correct reading and the correct reading of hard words.
