This article presents an overview of literacy teaching and learning, based on the author's extensive research and, in particular, the recently revised and extended "Learning to be Literate: Insights from Research for Policy and Practice" (Routledge, 2016). It is set against a background in England in which government policy dictates synthetic phonics as the method of teaching reading, supported by a high-stakes phonics test including nonsense words. The article points to the lack of evidence for such an approach, the complex nature of English orthography and the problems for the increasing number of children not learning to read in their first language.