More than a third of children left primary school this summer struggling to read, write and add up – despite Labour’s £2.5billion drive to raise standards in the three Rs.

The Government yesterday pledged a return to traditional lessons in English and maths after warning that achievement had ‘flatlined’ for much of Labour’s time in office.

This will include a fresh focus on arithmetic and the ‘synthetic phonics’ reading scheme.

Slipping standards: 84 per cent of 11-year-olds achieved the required level in reading, down from 86 per cent last year and 87 per cent in 2008 (file image)

About 200,000 11-year-olds – 35 per cent – failed to reach the expected standard for their age in reading, writing and maths, national SATs tests results showed yesterday.

It means they start secondary school next month unable to grasp the point of a story, write extended sentences using commas or add, subtract, multiply and divide in their heads.

Reading standards slipped for the second year running, with 84 per cent making the grade this summer compared with 86 per cent last year and 87 per cent in 2008.

HOW TEACHING SYNTHETIC PHONICS WORKS

Synthetic phonics has been described as a “back to basics” way of teaching children to read and it will be the focus of the Government’s literacy review.

The system teaches pupils to recognise the sounds of individual letters, and then blends of letters such as “sh”, “th” and “ee”.

Gradually pupils build up to “decoding” whole words from their constituent parts, for example “s-t-r-e-e-t”.

Those in favour of synthetic phonics say it teaches children very quickly how to read almost any word they encounter.

But critics of the method have argued that while children can read individual words they often do not understand what the words mean.

Synthetic phonics proved hugely successful in trials involving 300 schoolchildren in Clackmannanshire, Scotland, that were evaluated earlier this year.

By the age of 11, those children taught using synthetic phonics were three years ahead of their peers in reading skills.

Phonics was the dominant teaching system until the 1960s when new methods arrived, such as teaching children to learn whole words without mastering the alphabet “by rote”.

Ministers have insisted in the past that phonics is already central to the literacy strategy but critics argue that it is being diluted by the other classroom techniques.

They say synthetic phonics only works when it is the sole method used.

While results for writing improved, boys fell further behind girls, which will raise fears that many will fail to cope at secondary school.

Results for English overall – reading and writing combined – showed a slight improvement on last year, with 81 per cent of 11-year-olds reaching the required ‘level four’ grade against 80 per cent last year.

Maths standards also rose, edging up from 80 per cent to 81 per cent.

But just 65 per cent of 11-year-olds reached ‘level four’ in each of reading,writing and maths, the results from the Department for Education showed.

Ofsted earlier this year estimated the cost of delivering Labour’s literacy and numeracy programmes since 1998 at £4.5billion across the education system – £2.5billion for primary schools and £2billion for secondary.

Despite former prime minister Tony Blair’s ‘education, education, education’ mantra, inspectors said progress
had been ‘too slow’, particularly over the last four years.

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