Schools to adopt 'phonics' style of teaching reading

Polly Curtis, education correspondent
Thursday December 1, 2005

The education secretary, Ruth Kelly, today announced an overhaul of the way children are taught to read with a return to a "back to basics" approach.

A teaching style known "synthetic phonics", where children learn the letter sounds as the building blocks to words, was recommended in a review of the teaching of reading published today by the former schools inspector Jim Rose.

Ms Kelly immediately adopted the main finding. "Phonics should be central, it is central, but what we are doing is we are accepting Jim Rose's recommendation that it should be taught first and fast," Ms Kelly told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: From Guardian ( UK), December 1, 2005