ALL children should be reading independently by the age of 6, according to the author of an official reading review.

With a fifth of England’s 11-year-olds unable to read and write properly, the Government yesterday accepted that schools must return to the “traditional” phonics method to raise standards.

If they are taught well, every child should be able to read confidently within 18 months, Jim Rose, a former Ofsted director of inspections, who presented the findings, told The Times.

The move in effect abandons the central element of the national literacy hour, known as the “searchlights system”, after the nine-month independent review found that it did not work.

Since 1998, schools have been able to pick from a range of methods to teach children how to read. But from September, they will focus on one method, which will give 5-year-olds the “building blocks” to read by learning the sounds of the alphabet and blending them together into words.

“It’s a bit like numbers in maths. You wouldn’t dream of teaching maths without it,” Mr Rose said. “It gives children the building blocks to read — all the other approaches work, but in a less efficient, more distracting way.”

Mr Rose said that other methods that have dominated since the 1960s, such as the “whole word” approach, where children recognise words alongside pictures, opened up “many more variables”.

He said that, ideally, all schools should employ a dedicated phonics teacher to undertake the change and sustain it, as had already occurred in some parts of the country. He believed that if phonics were taught well for 20 minutes a day from the first day of primary school, most children should be able to read within 18 months.

“I’d have thought that by the time the child is 6 or 6½, the vast majority ought to be showing promising progress, or reading a book on their own at least,” he said.

Mr Rose’s review, Teaching of Early Reading — whose initial findings were accepted by Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, in December — came after a seven-year project in Clackmannanshire, Scotland, found that children taught synthetic phonics exclusively were 3½ years ahead of their peers in reading and 18 months ahead in writing at the end of primary school.

Mr Rose said that the “case for synthetic phonics was overwhelming”, not only in raising standards in reading and writing overall but also in narrowing the gender gap, because boys in particular thrived with the more focused hands-on approach.

Ms Kelly confirmed yesterday that the phonics approach would be taught in all primary schools from September. “I am clear that synthetic phonics should be the first strategy in teaching all children to read. I want to be clear in the National Curriculum and we will now work with QCA on how best to do this,” she said.

Teaching unions reacted with little enthusiasm. “Teachers will be bemused by the Government’s proposal to promote synthetic phonics. Phonics is already at the heart of early-years teaching. They simply wish for an end to the reading wars,” Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said.

Synthetic phonics

Example: children split street into five sounds and pronounce each one (s-t-r-ee-t) to form word Analytic phonics

Analytic phonics

Example: street split into two sounds (str-eet); compared to str-ike, gr-eet

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