Warning over struggling readers

A report from Ofsted found that many trainee teachers had a much weaker grasp of how to teach writing - especially spelling - than reading at primary school.

But even though trainees generally understood how reading should be taught, most still struggled to assess how well pupils were developing, the report said.

The findings were particularly concerning because Ofsted observed students on good quality teacher training courses for the study, and did not look at weaker courses.

Ministers have ordered schools to use a traditional method of literacy teaching known as "phonics", in which children learn to blend individual letter sounds to form whole words.

The report said most courses were preparing trainee teachers well to use phonics in the classroom. But it continued: "Some training courses failed to highlight the links between early reading and writing effectively.

"The result was that around half the trainees visited had a weaker understanding of the use of phonics for spelling than for reading.

"Furthermore, few of the trainees seen assessed individual pupils' phonic knowledge with the necessary rigour or had a sufficiently clear understanding of the place of systematic phonics in supporting weaker readers."

Ofsted said these skills were crucial because they would allow teachers "to intervene before a pupil falls behind".

The watchdog called for teachers to be given better training in how to assess individual pupils' reading skills.