Primary school children aged six to eight increased their reading ages by almost two years after attending an intensive synthetic phonics course lasting only two weeks, right-wing think tank Civitas said.
Synthetic phonics is a way of teaching children to read by demonstrating how to blend the sounds letters represent into words. The method is compulsory for all reception classes from the start of this term.
The 15 children on the course used Irina Tyk’s The Butterfly Book, which is published by Civitas later this month.
