The book is a complete basic reading course for young children, but it can also help older learners who still have serious gaps in their grasp of essential English phonics. It differs from most other courses in that it sets out all the crucial elements of reading in a single book and is designed to enable learners to teach themselves, with only minimal help from others. After brief initial guidance nearly all pupils should be able to work their way through it on their own. The course provides the vital foundation on which good progress in reading depends, but it can be supplemented with other reading materials at any time. Apart from being an elementary reading course, it also shows parents and teachers very clearly what the fundamental stage of learning to read involves. The first part of the book covers basic English phonics by teaching all the regular letter sounds, the second introduces 330 common words which are not entirely decodable and have to be partially learned as sight words, like 'hear - heard'. The pronunciation of such words is clarified with pictures or phonic aids.