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This article buries the lead.

TLDR: Phonics works, Current strategies don’t.

What actually works is the shortest part of the article. It’s infatuation with what doesn’t work puts what does work more than halfway into the article.

I would have appreciated the article to be structured as “Phonics works, MSV Doesn’t and here’s why they’re different”

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I wasn't aware of the methods used in the US. Here in Australia, we have phonics at my daughters' school and she's coming along really well. My 6.5-year-old daughter is able to read basically anything I put in front of her by sounding through words.

But make sure she has an age appropriate dictionary so that she can learn what the words mean, as well as being able to sound them out.

I love phonics. It's powerful. But sometimes children are so confident at sounding out words that we miss the fact they don't always understand those words.

My US centric bias is showing. Thanks for the reminder!

I suppose that a phonics lesson in Oz probably sounds a bit different than in the US. And they’re both effective. That’s fun to think about.

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