Summary.A collaboration between teachers and parents was organised so that every child in two randomly chosen top infant classes at two schools (one class at each school), randomly allocated from six multiracial inner‐city schools, was regularly heard reading at home from books sent by the class teacher. The intervention was continued for two years, i.e., until the end of the first year in the junior school. Comparison was made with the parallel classes at the same schools, and with randomly chosen classes at two schools, again randomly allocated, where children were given extra reading tuition in school. This report presents cross‐sectional analyses which show a highly significant improvement by children who received extra practice at home in comparison with control groups, but no comparable improvement by children who received extra help at school. The gains were made consistently by children of all ability lev