Why Johnny Can't Read: And What You Can Do About It

The classic bestseller on phonics—the method that can teach children to read in six weeks.

In 1955, Dr. Rudolf Flesch published Why Johnny Can't Read, a sharp criticism of teaching methods being used in American schools—methods, he argued, that were failing children and lowering the nation's literacy rates in comparison to other countries. He championed a return to phonics, which emphasized learning letters and their sounds rather than trying to memorize whole words and recognize them on si...