Argues that reading professionals should not reject or neglect theory merely because it is old and offers Jack Holmes' Substrata Factor Theory as a case in point. Reviews the statistical, neurological, and psychological models in Holmes' theory and points out their potential for stimulating further theoretical thought. (FL)

Based on the idea that mastery of reading is a complex problem to be solved by a child, the author discusses the learning-to-read process as a series of discoveries of solutions to subproblems, all of which are then ordered into a total system. As a child's attempted solutions approximate more closely the reality of each aspect of the reading…