''Why Johnny Can't Read—And What You Can Do About It'' is a 1955 book-length exposé on American reading education by

Rudolf Flesch Rudolf Franz Flesch (8 May 1911 – 5 October 1986) was an Austrian-born naturalized American writer (noted for his book '' Why Johnny Can't Read''), and also a readability expert and writing consultant who was a vigorous proponent of plain Eng ...

. It was an immediate bestseller for 37 weeks and became an educational

cause célèbre A cause célèbre (,''Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged'', 12th Edition, 2014. S.v. "cause célèbre". Retrieved November 30, 2018 from https://www.thefreedictionary.com/cause+c%c3%a9l%c3%a8bre ,''Random House Kernerman Webs ...

. In this book, the author concluded that the whole-word (

look-say Whole language is a philosophy of reading and a discredited educational method originally developed for teaching literacy in English to young children. The method became a major model for education in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and ...

) method was ineffective because it lacked phonics training. In addition, Flesch was critical of the simple stories and limited text and vocabulary in the

Dick and Jane ''Dick and Jane'' are the two main characters created by Zerna Sharp for a series of basal readers written by William S. Gray to teach children to read. The characters first appeared in the ''Elson-Gray Readers'' in 1930 and continued in a sub ...

style readers that taught students to read through word memorization. Flesch also believed that the look-say method did not properly prepare students to read more complex materials in the upper grade levels.

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