"For too long, we have been unwilling to deal with the root cause of the problem of  illiteracy in America the flawed methods we have used to teach our children to read.  Research shows phonics is the most effective way to teach people to read. It's the  way most of us learned to read. But it fell out of use in the last 20 years, with disastrous  consequences."

This quote could be attributed to many people who haven't taken the time to look closely  at reading. It's an example of how simple solutions to complex problems often involve  confusion of issues, misinformation, and logical fallacies about cause and effect.

Most of us were not taught to read through a method called phonics. We were taught  to read with basal readers which were based on controlled vocabulary and "word attack  skills," including considerable attention to phonics. In fact, there never was a  period when most learners were taught exclusively with a "phonics" method. Although there  have been variations in reading instruction in this country during this century,  there was no sharp pervasive change 20 years ago in the way reading was taught. Since  the early 1930s, basal readers have dominated American reading instruction. There is no  evidence of any "disastrous consequences" to literacy beginning 20 years ago. In  the 1970s, with a strong back-to-basics movement, basals increased rather than decreased  time devoted to explicit instruction in phonics. In the last decade there has been a  definite shift away from basals and toward the use of children's literature in reading  programs. And basals have responded by including more actual literature which is  less heavily edited.With the shift toward experiences in whole language programs with real  literature, sales of children's books have increased 500% in the last 10 years and  use of children's rooms in libraries is up dramatically. A lot of children are reading  a lot more. What is the role of phonics here? What IS phonics? What role does it play  in learning to read? Why is phonics NOT a method of teaching reading nor a solution  to the literacy problems of the world? ~