Yes it is a YART in that it has been touched on a few times in the "Declining Standards" thread but even I can't find it so....

Edinburgh Schools have had increasing success in teaching reading and spelling in recent years. The method, based on phonics, has been found to have significantly better results than previous "mix and match" programmes which relied on an eclectic mix of phonics and "whole word" teaching.

My children, who were pretty bad spellers, arrived in Edinburgh before the scheme was launched in their school and their spelling improved dramatically when it was introduced. The teaching method meant that parts of the day were set aside for whole class teaching (suddenly back in fashion in primary schools), concentrating on word families - eg pink, think, sink. Where words sounded the same but were spelt differently or were spelt the same but sounded differently were circled in red. So words such as glue and stew and rough would appear on the -ough list for words like through, marked in red.

Before this was introduced at the school, spelling was taught mainly by studying lists of whole words, according to their frequency of use in the english language. My intitial reaction was that the classes might be rather dull but instead, the way that it was taught, encouraged the children to think for themselves - they seemed have great fun building up the word lists. although the teachers, did seem to move rather quickly through some word groups, for example duck, pluck, muck .. oh, is it time for lunch?

In English schools, there is a programme called the "Literacy Hour" where teachers have to follow a set programme for an hour every morning. I have no direct experience of the programme. It was much resisted by teachers but friends tell me that it is working well for their children. If you google on "literacy hour" you will find out more about it.

Here is a link to some research on the use of a method called synthetic phonics for those in their first year at school, conducted over a five year period in Edinburgh schools:
Conclusions
Prior to doing this research we had believed that it was good to use an eclectic approach to teaching reading from the earliest stages. So we thought that on school entry it was effective to teach children some phonics and some sight words, but also that it was necessary to introduce them to reading books very early on so that they learn that reading is a pleasurable and meaningful activity. What we have learnt is that a ‘phonics first’ approach, whereby children are taught right from the start that letter sounds can be blended together to pronounce words, gives them an excellent start, and the basic elements can be completed in the first term of school if intensive teaching is given. Of course this phonics teaching can alternatively be carried out in the context of reading attractive books from a reading scheme.
http://www.jollylearning.co.uk/Research-1/Research.html