The Right to Read Reviewed by
Prof. Barry M. Franklin
Department of Education, School of Education and Human Services,
Program in Public Administration, College of Arts and Sciences,
University of Michigan-Flint, U.S.A.:

I have finished my review of the "Right to Read" by Dr. Jan Strydom and Susan du Plessis. In reviewing the book, I have confined my attention to the first ten chapters. I have done so in that my own expertise falls into the area of educational policy and history and not in the teaching of reading. I thought that the first ten chapters were exceptionally well done. I think the authors did an excellent job in helping the general reader understand the fact that learning disabilities is a social construct used to describe a condition that may or may not in fact exist. They provide an accurate and easily understandable account of the history of the learning disabilities construct and the state of learning disabilities theory today. They summarize some of the most important critical literature in the field. This is the kind of information that parents and others need to have if they are to make informed decisions about children.

Since I do not know anything about the teaching of reading, I am not in a position to evaluate the particular intervention that the authors put forth in their volume.

I do think that it is important for parents of children with learning problems to have an awareness of the problematic nature of the construct of learning disabilities. One would hope that they would be attracted to a book like this one that provides this kind of account. I might recommend that the authors consider a very brief introduction to Parts I and II for the busy reader who wants the central message of the book but has less time for the details. I cannot provide an evaluation of the intervention proposed by these authors. I would, however, say that teaching suggestions are particularly valuable in the present climate where we seem to expect that parents and other caregivers will take an active role in the education of their children. On balance, I think that this book would be attractive to a US audience.