The vast majority of schools have now moved to an acceptance that phonics needs to be taught

Her Majesty's Inspectors

A report published by the standards watchdog, Ofsted, said too many schools had failed to grasp what they needed to do to teach phonics - the recognition of sounds.

Work was "either non-existent or unsatisfactory" in a quarter of classes for six and seven year olds - and worse in the following two years.

Where schools were doing things properly, children made good progress in reading and writing independently, the report said.

Click here to see what children should be learning

The report noted that in this year's tests for seven year olds, nearly a third failed to reach the reading standard expected for their age and two fifths were not writing well enough.

It echoed Ofsted's interim report on the implementation of the national literacy strategy which was introduced in England's primary schools in 1998.

This said that even where phonics was taught, there were weaknesses in the teaching in just under three in 10 of the lessons inspectors observed.

Ofsted acknowledged that there had been a lot of uncertainty about how best to teach phonics - even "intense" debate about whether it should be taught at all.

Recital of sounds helps in whole-class work

Before the literacy strategy, it tended to be a "last resort" for pupils with reading difficulties - often taught surreptitiously because teachers felt they did not have official approval for what they were doing.

"The vast majority of schools have now moved to an acceptance that phonics needs to be taught, both for reading and for spelling," the report said.

But "there is still much further to go before the quality of the teaching is good enough".

The less successful schools lacked a consistent approach to phonics, with too many different methods in use in classrooms.

Ofsted also said teachers had not had enough training.

Responding to Ofsted's report, the Schools Minister, Catherine Ashton, said it showed how the quality of the teaching in schools had improved steadily since the literacy strategy had begun.

"We have invested heavily in training primary school teachers in the latest teaching of phonics," she said.

"Last academic year, 38,000 primary teachers were trained in the teaching of phonics. We will continue to provide teachers with up-to-date training."

These are the phonics and spelling children should learn in their first years:

Reception year

Recognise all initial consonant and short vowel sounds (a-z, ch, sh, th) in speech and in writing, to identify and write correct initial letters in response to the letter sound, word, object or picture.

Recognise and name each letter of the alphabet and to be aware of alphabetical order through rhymes and songs.

Discriminate, write and read final sounds in simple words.

Year 1

Discriminate, write and read middle (short vowel) sounds in simple words: "a" (fat), "e" (wet), "i" (pig), "o" (pot), "u" (mug).

Read and spell words ending in ck, ff, ll, ss, ng.

Discriminate, blend and spell

• initial consonant clusters: bl, br, cl, cr, dr, dw, fl, fr, gl, gr, pl, pr, sc, scr, sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, spl, spr, squ, st, str, sw, tr, tw, thr, shr
• common end clusters: ld, nd, lk, nk, sk, lp, mp, sp, ct, ft, lt, nt, pt, st, xt, lf, nch, lth

Discriminate, spell and read the common spelling patterns for the long vowel phonemes "ee", "ai", "ie", "oa", "oo":

• ee: "ee" (feet), "ea" (seat)
• ai: "ai" (train), "a-e" (name), "ay" (play)
• ie: "ie" (lie), "i-e" (bite), "igh" (high), "y" (fly)
• oa: "oa" (boat), "o-e" (pole), "ow" (show)
• oo: "oo" (moon), "u-e" (tune), "ew" (flew), "ue" (blue)

Year 2

Discriminate, spell and read the common spelling patterns for the vowel phonemes "oo" (short) "ar" "oy" "ow":

• oo (short): "u" (pull), "oo" (good)
• ar: "ar" (car)
• oy: "oi" (boil), "oy" (toy)
• ow: "ow" (cow), "ou" (sound)

Discriminate, spell and read the common spelling patterns for the vowel phonemes "air", "or", "er"

• air: "air" (fair), "are" (scare), "ere" (there), "ear" (bear, wear)
• or: "or" (sport), "oor" (floor), "aw" (claw), "au" (caught), "ore" (more, store)
• er: "er" (her, were), "ir" (bird), "ur" (fur)

Discriminate, spell and read the common spelling patterns for the vowel phonemes "ear", "ea"

• ear: eg fear, hear
• ea: (bread, head)

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