Phonics, synthetic and analytic, subject of controversy

The latest results from a seven-year Scottish study show that children taught how to put sounds together to read words, called synthetic phonics, had significantly better reading skills than their peers taught using analytic phonics, breaking whole words into their constituent sounds.

But Australian literacy researcher Allan Luke, from the Queensland University of Technology, questions the validity of using evidence-based research in assessing teaching methods. Luke, a former director-general of the Queensland Education Department and ministerial adviser on education, has dismissed scientific studies showing the benefit of phonics. Speaking at a curriculum symposium last month, he said the studies provided no evidence that alternate methods had failed. Read about the literacy controversy in The Australian online.