A method of teaching reading and spelling by correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters. It emphasizes the relationship between written symbols and their corresponding sounds.
From Greek 'phone' meaning 'sound' or 'voice', with the suffix '-ics' indicating a field of study. Developed as an educational approach in the 19th century as literacy education became more systematic.
The phonics versus whole language debate has raged in education for decades, with research now showing that a balanced approach works best for most children. Interestingly, phonics works less well for languages with irregular spelling systems like English compared to more phonetically consistent languages.
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