Onwords and Upwords Approach is intended to help Junior Infants learn how to use a book while developing pre-reading skills. It contains exercises aimed at developing visual discrimination, phonemic awareness, listening skills and the basic motor skills necessary for writing. The child is introduced to the idea of reading direction and challenged to develop reasoning skills.

The Robbie Rabbit character appears randomly throughout the book as a motivation to the child to scan the pages more intently. A shaded strip at the bottom of each page will assist teachers with planning and executing lessons.