While the American educational establishment still doggedly adheres to the whole-language approach, the results speak for themselves.

"Imagine if a kid is learning to read, and first you're teaching him in phonics and then you switch to the more esoteric whole-language approach," she said.

A whole-language approach, "on its own, is not in the best interests of children, particularly those experiencing reading difficulties".

Many experts have de-emphasized phonics over the last two decades and instead adopted the whole-language approach, in which reading is taught through context rather than recognition of the alphabet.

They try to occupy the middle ground in the American education wars and blend the sound-based phonics approach with the sight-based whole-language approach.

A third-grade student steeped in the whole-language approach to reading might in the fourth grade enter the unfamiliar world of phonics-based reading, emphasizing the sounds letters make.

The Inquiry Committee also states that the apparent dichotomy between phonics and the whole-Language approach to teaching "is false".

The whole-language approach also teaches phonics, but more implicitly, in the context of stories meant to engage.

"We refused to get sucked into the controversy of phonics versus the whole-language approach," she said.

Recently, however, the whole-language approach has received official attention.