Essex children who have taken part in the county’s Early Reading Research Scheme are on average nearly 10 months ahead of their age in reading, says Jonathan Solity of Warwick University.

The percentage of children 12 months behind with their reading and likely to need additional support is down to 5 per cent in the research scheme groups, compared to 20 per cent in those using the literacy hour only. Yet it also works well with the most able children, with 35 per cent of pupils a year ahead - compared to 18 per cent in other groups.

The Essex project, now in its seventh year, draws on psychology to establish the most effective ways to teach. Children are taught for three short sessions a day because psychologists believe they have difficulty concentrating for the full hour of the literacy strategy.

There is much more repetition to reinforce learning than in the strategy, and more emphasis on phonological, phonic and sight vocabulary rather than rhyming.

The initial aim was to help children who were struggling to learn to read, and much of the work has been with disadvantaged pupils in education action zones. But it has proved effective with pupils of all abilities and the principles are now being applied to early writing, numeracy work, and to poor readers in secondary schools.

Neither Dr Solity, an educational psychologist who led the research, nor the council suggest the scheme is a replacement for the literacy strategy.

But Dr Solity noted: “On average, the children we have been teaching and comparing to the literacy strategy are six months ahead on reading accuracy and even further ahead on reading comprehension - nearly a year. The result is the same whether you look at the highest or lowest achievers.

“If we could replicate that across the country, you would save the Government approximately pound;200m a year in special-needs funding for children with literacy difficulties.”

Sue Kerfoot, head of SEN and educational psychology in the county, said the two schemes were complementary. The Essex scheme does not cover key stage 2 and has particular strengths in word-level work, whereas the literacy strategy covers the full age range and provides more text-level work.

“Schools see this as offering something extra. It does build on the literacy strategy. In particular it has a more effective approach to teaching phonics and phonological skills, and offers a way of ensuring we keep the lower-attaining children up with others of their age.

“In terms of its effect on children’s learning over fairly short time scales, this has had the greatest impact of any project I have come across.”

A Department for Education and Skills spokeswoman said: “We are always interested to hear about research which aims to help raise children’s literacy skills.”