This article is devoted to the comparison of the existing methods of teaching primary school students to read in English. There are 2 widespread methods — a traditional one (when students learn the rules of reading) and the whole-word one (when students read words as a whole unit). The article states the advantages and disadvantages of these methods, concentrating on the psychological characteristics of primary school students. The author comes to the conclusion, that the only right way is to combine these methods, as it was done in Spotlight 2–4.

The article focuses on the original technology of the author that can empower teaching English with Letterland. For many years educators in English-speaking countries rejected traditional teaching of phonics, believing that because English spelling is so irregular, to give priority to teaching letter sounds was too difficult and confusing. It required too much rote learning, it was unpopular and boring for 5–7 year-olds, and worse, it gave them a distaste for reading.