Benefits of Using the Phonics Method to Teach Children to Read

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“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn the more places you'll go.” This quote by Dr. Seuss explains the importance of reading. Knowing how to read is very important to be successful in life. In 2009,a nationwide study by the National Center for Educational Statistics recorded that sixty-seven percent of 4th grade students, seventy-five percent of 8th grade students, and seventy-four percent of 12th grade students were not reading at a proficient level. This will cause many problems as the child progresses through life and later on to adulthood. According to the National assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), forty-three percent read at the lowest 2 literacy level ("Who Needs Phonics"). They will not be able to apply to jobs, stigmatized in society, and may result in their children being illiterate also. In order to decrease the alarming rate of seven million illiterate children and give them a chance to have a better life is by integrating a method to teach them how to read better.

There are numerous ways to teach a child how to read. Yet most of the methods can be divided in two groups; the whole-language approach or phonics. There has been and still is a major debate about which method is best. The method that is the best strategy to teach children ages six-ten to read is phonics. Phonics teaches people to read by linking sounds with letters or groups of letters in an alphabetic writing system. Phonics helps to improve a learner’s sense of phonemic awareness; the ability to hear, identify, and the use of phonemes; the simplest sound a letter makes. The main objective of phonics is to assist beginning readers how to identify new written words by blending the sound-spelling patter...

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