Kylie Mackie was worried about her daughter's reading from when Jorja was five years old.

Key points: How Australian kids learn to read is once again being debated as the Federal Government pushes to test students' knowledge of phonics

How Australian kids learn to read is once again being debated as the Federal Government pushes to test students' knowledge of phonics Teachers are caught up in the political 'reading wars' and it's all to do with whether children can sound out words

Teachers are caught up in the political 'reading wars' and it's all to do with whether children can sound out words One parent told the ABC, if there was a greater focus on phonics, her daughter may have progressed more easily

For three years, teachers told her Jorja was on track, but in her gut she knew something was wrong.

"They insisted for quite a few years that she was OK, but when I was at home with her she just struggled to read," Ms Mackie said.

"She just could not pick it up."

At eight years old, Jorja was diagnosed with dyslexia, a learning difficulty that makes breaking down words and blending sounds difficult.

To get back on track, Jorja began intensive literacy therapy with Paula Sciré, a tutor who focuses on teaching phonics as a means to improving students' reading.

Within weeks, Jorja began making progress.

Tutor Paula Sciré uses flash cards to help Jorja Mackie improve her understanding of the sounds various letters represent. ( ABC News: Brendan Esposito )

Ms Sciré said she saw many students who she believed had been failed by mainstream schooling.

"They're missing out on the basic phonemic awareness and the basic phonemic skills to succeed in school," she said.

For years, the teaching of phonics has been caught up in a highly political battle, dubbed the 'reading wars'.

On one side of the debate are advocates of phonics who favour teaching reading by starting with breaking down combinations of letters into the sounds they represent. This, they argue, enables children to read unfamiliar words.

On the opposing side are educators who favour the 'whole language' approach, which holds that learning to read is like learning to speak and students immersed in literature can learn to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from their context.

Adelaide school principal Mark Hansen said it was incredibly disappointing that a reading war was raging, because he thought teaching practices should be based on the best research.

"It says that synthetic phonics is probably the most effective way to teach reading to kids," he said.

Australia's reading performance declines

The reading wars have been reignited in Australia by the Federal Government's push to test students' knowledge of phonics in all primary schools.

The phonics check, imported from the United Kingdom, presents children with 40 words, half of them real words and half made-up words.

The inclusion of the nonsense words is designed to identify children who may have memorised common words, but can not break them down into their letter-sound relationships.

Synthetic phonics teaches students to understand the sounds letters represent and to combine them to form words. ( ABC News: Brendan Esposito )

South Australia was the first state to introduce a phonics check, and the results were sobering. Last year, only 43 per cent of students reached the benchmark in reading.

The figures reflect Australia's declining literacy standards. The latest results from the Programme for International Student Assessment, run by the OECD, showed Australia had dropped to equal 12th place in reading, behind nations including New Zealand, Poland and Slovenia.

Sue Thompson, from the Australian Council for Educational Research, said it was concerning Australia's reading performance had declined significantly this century.

"The decline is most noticeable at the lower end of achievement," Dr Thompson said.

"Australia had a higher proportion of low achievers in 2015 than in 2000."

However, another international study has shown some improvement in reading among younger Australian students.

NSW has now moved to conduct an opt-in trial of the phonics check in schools, and the Federal Government plans to make a voluntary phonics check available to all parents and schools.

South Australian Education Minister John Gardner said the results of the test there showed a deficiency across the education system that needed to be addressed.

"It's not enough to have lip service paid to phonics being a part of teaching children to read and write. It's important that phonics is taught well," he said.

He said teachers and principals reported the test revealed one or two students in every class who needed extra help, but who had been missed until that point because they had memorised some words or were guessing them based on the pictures.

What can happen with those students is that even though their reading is acceptable in year one, they start to struggle in year three or four when texts become more complicated.

Children 'will come to reading in their own way'

Most schools currently teach reading using an approach that University of Sydney professor Robyn Ewing described as a balanced approach — one that combines phonics with whole language instruction.

Educators say children learn in different ways and can use a variety of strategies to develop their reading skills. ( ABC News: Chris Taylor )

She said part of the problem was the education system looked for a simple formula or a ready-made recipe.

The nation's most powerful teachers' union — the NSW Teachers Federation — opposes teachers being pressured into teaching reading in a particular way. Professor Ewing agrees.

"All children are different and will come to reading in their own way, and it's up to the teacher to provide a repertoire of different strategies," she said.

Her concern with the phonics check is that the 40 words are presented without context and therefore lose meaning.

The issue of meaning comes up repeatedly in debates about reading instruction.

The Alphabet Tree, The Cat in the Hat and Hop on Pop each employ different theories on how children should learn to read. ( ABC News )

Supporters of the whole language approach argue that unstructured immersion in language teaches students to work out the meaning of words, not just to join the sounds of letters together.

Professor Ewing believes focusing on phonics when a child is starting to learn to read can be detrimental, because the approach often uses contrived texts that have limited vocabulary and grammatical structures, and that often do not make sense.

"Children need to understand that reading is about making meaning," she said.

'Not true' that children learn to read like speaking, hearing

At Ardtornish Primary School in Adelaide's north-east, a teacher directs her class to sound out real and nonsense words on flashcards.

Using flash cards to teach students the sounds of various combinations of letters is part of the phonics method of teaching reading. ( ABC News: Chris Taylor )

Principal Mark Hansen explained the principle of synthetic phonics was that students should not be asked to know something they have not been taught.

He said learning to read was like learning music: a teacher would not ask students to play a piece of Chopin, but would rather start by giving them simple notes, then teaching them how to play them together.

"You start off teaching them the sounds, and then you teach them to blend those sounds, and then they can start reading words," Mr Hansen said.

Early in his career in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mr Hansen was a strong proponent of the whole language approach, but when he became a principal, he realised the method was failing a sizable minority of students.

He said at the end of every year, teachers would approach him for extra resources to help students who were not keeping up and each year there were more kids needing help.

"What they lacked was phonic knowledge," Mr Hansen said.

"They just couldn't sound out words. They didn't know how to attack words."

Several years ago, Mr Hansen introduced a synthetic phonics program and now his school achieves consistently high scores in the phonics check.

He said the whole language approach was based on the idea that we learn to read like we learn to speak and hear and "we know that that's not true".

"We know that reading is actually not a natural process," Mr Hansen said.

Jorja Mackie writes on a white board as her reading tutor Paula Sciré offers guidance during a lesson at her home. ( ABC News: Brendan Esposito )

Reading is even less of a natural process for children with dyslexia.

Ms Mackie is adamant that if a phonics check had been in place when Jorja was in year one, it would have saved them years of frustration.

She thinks it is critical phonics checks are brought into all schools.

"It would have saved us years of wasted time, and it might have allowed Jorja to progress in her reading a lot sooner," she said.