"Frank Smith is internationally acclaimed as an essential contributor to research on the nature of the reading process and as an originator of the modern psycholinguistic approach to reading instruction. His research into aspects of language encompasses the nature of communication and information; the relationship between the eyes and the brain; crucial bottlenecks in memory, knowledge and comprehension; spoken and written language; learning about the world and about language; how letters and words are recognized; the inadequacies of phonics; how meaning is identified independently of letters and words; and learning to read. His aim has always been to support teachers, to encourage them to make teaching decisions based on knowledge and understanding, to analyze what their students are trying to do and why what the students are doing doesn't always correspond with what they are expected to do. Now these topics are available in one volume, Landmarks in Literacy, a thoughtfully crafted selection of 16 key writings from Essays Into Literacy; Unspeakable Acts, Unnatural Practices; Joining the Literacy Club; Reading Without Nonsense; Between Hope and Havoc; Comprehension and Learning; Insult to Intelligence; and The Glass Wall. In the World Library of Educationalists, international scholars themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces - extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and/practical contributions - so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers thus are able to follow the themes and strands of their work and see their contribution to the development of a field, as well as the development of the field itself"--