The findings were seized on by the Conservatives in Westminster, whowant to extend the use of synthetic phonics, as they unveiled proposalsfor all six-year-olds in the UK to sit a national reading test.
A series of investigations involving over 60,000 pupils, including allof West Dunbartonshire's 23 nurseries and 35 primary schools, found thatthe level of pupils leaving secondary school without basic readingskills has fallen from 20 per cent to virtually zero since the studybegun in 1997.
The study's author, consultant psychologist Dr Tommy MacKay, said, 'Inthe nurseries, children were given constant exposure to literacy throughnaming, labels and books. They were inculcated in the relationshipbetween the printed and spoken word.'
Parents were involved in supporting the teaching of reading at home.Extra classroom help was given in the early years, along with homevisits for vulnerable children.
Primary 1 and Primary 2 pupils had daily lessons in phonics. In mostcases, the report said, reading ages were 'fast forwarded' by a wholeyear, and children's progress was maintained in subsequent years.Children from Primary 3 upwards who did not progress were givenintensive support from volunteers using the multi-sensory programme Toeby Toe.
In one part of the study, nine Primary 1 classes who were taught usingsynthetic phonics, a method that builds words from individual sounds andstresses whole-class activity methods, were compared with nine Primary 1classes taught with traditional analytical phonics, which takes wholewords as its starting point. Synthetic phonics was found to producebetter results.
Dr MacKay said, 'Good phonics teaching is likely to produce goodresults, but synthetic phonics teaching will almost certainly getenhanced results.'