Section 1: Who needs another book on reading instruction? Introduction. 1. Speaking and reading. Section 2: Starting the first school year. 2. A balanced literacy program: theory and practice. 3. Listening comprehension. 4. Phonological awareness. Section 3: The first year at school. 5. The formal literacy program: Theory. 6. The formal literacy program: Rationale and outline. 7. Sound/symbol correspondence. 8. Phonemic awareness. 9. Decodable texts, word families and text features. 10. Spelling. Section 4: The second year at school. 11. Literary texts. 12. Factual and procedural texts. 13. Word building and morphological awareness. 14. Fluency and reading comprehension acquisition. Section 5: The third year at school. 15. Listening comprehension. 16. Reading comprehension and creative writing. Section 6: Assessment and intervention. 17. Assessment and intervention. 18. Individual intervention: Research and practice.