When I was in school, they didn’t teach phonics. We learned in whole words, by memorizing words and their spellings. We learned words every year in school. Although I didn’t know how many words we were memorizing, studies show that we try to teach our children somewhere between 400-600 words per year.

Phonics, on the other hand doesn’t rely on memorizing words (fir the most part). Instead, it uses between 180 to 400 different phonetic rules to help the reader decode about 85% of English words. Another 12% of words don’t follow any of the phonetic rules, but are still decodable by the reader sounding out the letters and then narrowing down the possible pronunciation of the word and deciding which pronunciation best fits the context in which the word appears.

What’s best for one child may not be the best for another. Most often, a combination of styles makes the most sense. I’ve seen readers of all ages show dramatic improvement after being tutored in phonics. I also see a lot of readers (people of my generation) who never learned phonics, but read fluently and with outstanding comprehension. I’m a big believer in doing what works. It’s the parent’s and teacher’s responsibility to figure this out.

I recently read a statement paper by the International Reading Association stating teachers should have a variety of reading methods, and their schools should give them the freedom to incorporate these different methods. Since each child learns differently, any one method, or combination of methods must be tailored to the child. In other words, no one method or combination of methods works for everyone. This is just plain common sense.

If you’re a parent getting ready to meet with your child’s reading teacher, you should familiarize yourself with the concept of phonics. Teachers have a tendency to talk in codes and acronyms that parents (and people outside of the education industry) don’t understand. Educate yourself first, and don’t be afraid to ask them to explain their acronyms.