The Economist reports:
Phonics, which involves sounding-out words syllable by syllable, is the best way to teach children to read. But in many classrooms, ff-on-ics is a dirty sound. Kymyona Burk, who implemented Mississippi’s statewide literacy programme, says that some teachers have had to sneak phonics teaching materials into the classroom, like some kind of samizdat. Teaching reading any other way is “malpractice”, says Ms Burk. And yet for reasons that include politics, partisanship and personal experience, most American children are taught to read in a way that study after study has found to be wrong.
There's more:
Some advocate teaching symbol-sound relationships (the sound k can be spelled as c, k, ck, or ch), known as phonics. Others support an immersive approach (using pictures of a cat to learn the word cat), known as “whole language”. Most teachers today, almost three out of four according to a survey by the EdWeek Research Centre in 2019, use a mix called “balanced literacy”. This mash-up of methods is ineffective. “You can’t sprinkle in a little phonics,” says Tenette Smith, executive director of elementary education and reading at Mississippi’s education department. “It has to be systematic and explicitly taught.”
Check out the results:
Mississippi, often a laggard in social policy, has set an example here. In a state once notorious for its low reading scores, the Mississippi state legislature passed new literacy standards in 2013. Since then Mississippi has seen remarkable gains. Its fourth graders have moved from 49th (out of 50 states) to 29th on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a nationwide exam. In 2019 it was the only state to improve its scores. For the first time since measurement began, Mississippi’s pupils are now average readers, a remarkable achievement in such a poor state.
If your child doesn't learn to read by phonics they could develop dyslexia. Anyway, if you read one article today : this is it.
