The trials will be based on the Primary National Strategy's 'Playing with Sounds' programme, additional guidance on teaching phonics in the Foundation Stage published last year.
However, many early years experts remain sceptical about the approach.
Evidence from the pilot schemes will contribute to the independent review of how reading is taught which was launched in June and is led by former Ofsted director of inspection Jim Rose. The final report is due early next year, followed by a renewed Literacy Framework.
According to the Department for Education and Skills, the trial schemes will examine several issues, such as 'the pace of phonics teaching in the Foundation Stage, the application of phonics through play-based approaches to learning and ongoing support and training in early literacy'.
Local education authorities that have been asked to take part are Barnsley, Cheshire, Coventry, Hackney, Hertfordshire, Islington, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Medway, Newcastle, Notting- ham, Peterborough, Redcar and Cleveland, Southampton, Tameside, Telford & Wrekin, Tower Hamlets, Lambeth and Wiltshire.
The DfES will also contribute 5m over the next three years to a Reading Recovery scheme. The Every Child a Reader project, developed jointly with charitable trusts, including the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and the KPMG Foundation, will work with the Institute of Education.
A total of 10m will be spent on paying for specialist literacy teachers in schools in 20 LEAs as part of an early intervention project targeted at deprived areas and schools where children are leaving primary school without basic literacy skills.
The teachers will be trained in Reading Recovery to provide one-to-one support for 30 minutes every day for three to four months to 4,000 six-year-olds.
The first of the selected schools to take part, from September, are in Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham, Middlesbrough, Sheffield, Brent, Greenwich, Southwark, Hammersmith & Fulham and Hackney.
Jim Rose said, 'The phonics pilots will provide valuable opportunities to take account of practitioners' and teachers' views on the teaching of phonics.
'The Every Child a Reader project will provide an invaluable insight into classroom practice on how best to support children with literacy difficulties, which are fundamental considerations for my review.'
But early years experts continue to take issue with the Government's approach to teaching young children to read.
Professor Tina Bruce at the University of Roehampton said that 'one size doesn't fit all' and there needed to be a wide range of reading strategies.
She said, 'I welcome the broad approach taken by the literacy strategy currently and the recognition that reading is not just about text.
But to introduce one kind of phonics, first, fast and only is too narrow.'
Helen Bromley, an early years literacy consultant, criticised the over-emphasis on phonics.
'Nobody can deny that phonics has a role to play,' she said. 'But to see it as a cure-all for all reading ills is thoroughly misguided. Of course children need to know letters and sounds, but there should be more than one way of teaching reading.'
She added, 'I would have concerns that a six-year-old would be labelled as already having failed to learn to read. In Europe they have only just started formal schooling at this age and are only just learning to read.
The reason that many six-year-olds will need Reading Recovery is because of an over-emphasis on phonics teaching. Children become over-dependent on the print and they lose the ability to read with meaning. They need less phonics and more good books.'