Summary

The authors argue that it is crucial to develop reading programmes that are effective with the full range of children, including those from homes where there is little or no literate activity and/or where the first language or dialect is different from the language of instruction. They introduce the concentrated language encounter (CLE) approach as a well-tried way of doing that, providing the theoretical framework, a detailed description of a CLE programme, and accounts of its success in various contexts. They give guidelines on how to develop a CLE programme for primary schools, an account of large-scale implementation of such a programme in a developing country, and they discuss practical implications for classroom managemnt and for assessing children's progress.