Reading With Phonics

Ever since the sight word method replaced phonics as the way to teach children to read and spell, there have been arguments -sometimes called "the reading wars" - for and against phonics. The author remembers far enough back to the days before all this started - when teaching letters and sounds went without saying and parents could depend on the school system to teach their children to read.

Reading difficulties forced theorists to re-think their strategies so they came up with a philosoph...