Sydney Morning Herald
The federal government will withhold money from states who fail to adopt a back-to-basics approach in teaching reading.
Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson says he will "mandate" to ensure all states comply with the recommendations of a national literacy inquiry, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The inquiry has found nearly one in three children were not learning to read properly because they had not been taught the building blocks provided by phonics, a system of sounding out letters and syllables.
"You'll find roughly 30 per cent of year 9 students have functional literacy problems," said Ken Rowe, who heads the inquiry and is a research director with the Australian Council for Educational Research.
"The only way we can really address this is with a nationwide solution."
Dr Rowe is expected to recommend a return to the teaching of phonics, which was largely eclipsed in the 1980s by the whole-language method of teaching reading.
Many schools have adopted a blend of the two methods.
Dr Nelson, who commissioned the inquiry, said the government would withhold funding if states resisted the reforms.
"If they don't (agree), that then leaves us with the only language they seem to understand, and that's money," he said.
Dr Rowe said Australia was among the top OECD countries in terms of literacy skills, but the latest national test results had shown about one in 10 year 5 and year 7 students cannot meet their reading benchmarks.
His report is due within weeks.
© 2005 AAP
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