Sounding it Out: The Phonics War

"How can we help her decode this word?" the teacher asks.

"Help her sound it out!" several children shout back. The class sounds out "tuh-aah-puh" and a word is formed: tap.

Two years ago, if a teacher at Family Academy, an innovative public school in New York City's Harlem, had used the word "decoding"--the backbone of the traditional phonics approach to reading--she might have been sent to the principal's office. Like schools across the country, Family Academy relied on the whole-language method to teach children to read. Instead of being drilled in consonant and vowel sounds, children listened to teachers reading good books out loud. Instead of being taught to sound out words, they were expected to grasp the concept of reading intuitively, almost by osmosis, as they gulped down whole words and sentences.

But, when Family Academy's students scored lower in reading than any other school in New York City, administrators decided something had to change.