The Right to Read Reviewed by
Mr. D. J. Pantland
(BA[Hons], T.T.H.D.), Headmaster of Bertrams Junior School
in Johannesburg, South Africa:

Attached find a request for three more copies of “The Right to Read.”

Our first copy arrived yesterday and I started reading it last night. It was so interesting that I could not put it down — rare for a book on an essentially academic subject!

The authors' observations of the learning processes of children and the most effective ways of teaching them struck a resonant chord. Having been taught in a so-called old-fashioned way, with lots of drill, repetition and attention to content, I identified with the authors' contention that these tried and tested methods have been abandoned by current educationalists at enormous costs to the modern child. The authors' stress on learning inabilities rather than disabilities is a clarion call to teachers to examine their teaching methods rather than blaming the child's failure to learn on something inherently wrong in the child, a most timely warning to all of us engaged in teaching.

I highlighted aspects of the book at my daily staff meeting this morning. The teachers responded very positively and one teacher in her late 20s commented that it reflected her own thoughts on what she encountered in the classroom. All agreed that the OBE curriculum forced on us is inadequate and severely limiting and welcomed the chance to explore the more traditional and effective ways of teaching.

Please convey to all concerned my congratulations and appreciation. I hope “The Right to Read” reaches a wide audience and provokes reflection on and appraisal of the current disastrous course on which South African education is set.