Summary: A new study finds that learning to read by sounding out words — commonly called phonics — significantly improves both the accuracy of reading aloud and reading comprehension.
Source: Royal Holloway University.
Research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General demonstrates that phonics-based reading instruction — teaching learners the relationship between letters and sounds — substantially improves reading accuracy and comprehension compared with focusing on whole-word meaning.
Debate persists over the best methods for teaching reading. To compare approaches, researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London and the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit trained adults to read a newly created written language printed in unfamiliar symbols. Some participants were taught to decode words by mapping symbols to sounds (phonics), while others learned words primarily through whole-word meanings. The team assessed learning outcomes through behavioural reading tests and MRI brain scans.
Professor Kathy Rastle, of the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, commented, “The results were striking: learners who focused on whole-word meanings were much less accurate when reading aloud and had poorer comprehension than those trained with phonics. Our MRI scans showed that their brains had to exert more effort to decipher the unfamiliar script.”
Recommendation for wider adoption of systematic phonics
In England, systematic phonics instruction is a statutory requirement in state-funded primary schools. Progress is monitored by a Year 1 phonics screening check, which has recorded steady improvements in the percentage of children reaching the expected standard — rising from 58% in 2012 to 81% in 2016.
Despite these gains, some educators prefer a less prescriptive approach that combines phonics with meaning-based strategies such as picture cues and contextual guessing. A common concern is that phonics might help children read aloud but not support comprehension.
Professor Rastle responded to this concern: “There is a long history of debate over which methods should be used to teach reading. Some continue to advocate using meaning-based cues to guess words. However, our study provides clear evidence that instruction focused on the relationship between spelling and sound is most effective. Phonics works.”
Governmental support
Schools Standards Minister Nick Gibb said the government’s education strategy aims to give every child the knowledge and skills to succeed, and that teaching children to read fluently by the end of primary school is essential to that goal. He highlighted that a sustained emphasis on phonics, together with teachers’ efforts and higher standards, has increased the number of six-year-olds on track to become fluent readers since 2012.
Phonics supports both reading aloud and comprehension
The paper reports that learners trained to recognise whole words did not outperform phonics-trained learners on comprehension tasks. In contrast, phonics-trained participants matched or exceeded comprehension levels while demonstrating substantially better accuracy when reading aloud. This outcome directly challenges the notion that phonics benefits decoding at the expense of understanding text.
Dr Jo Taylor, also from the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, explained, “Some argue that phonics might impair reading comprehension, but our findings contradict that claim. Phonics aids comprehension by linking visual symbols to spoken language. The laboratory paradigm we developed offers robust evidence for phonics’ effectiveness and clarifies how brain systems supporting reading are engaged by decoding instruction.”
The research team plans to continue investigating how reading expertise develops in the brain and how different instructional methods shape that development over time.
Funding: This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Source: Royal Holloway University.
Image source: Image adapted from the Royal Holloway University news release.
Original research: The study is published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
MLA: Royal Holloway University. “Sounding Out Words Is the Best Way to Teach Reading.” Neuroscience News, 21 April 2017.
APA: Royal Holloway University (2017, April 21). Sounding Out Words Is the Best Way to Teach Reading. Neuroscience News.
Chicago: Royal Holloway University. “Sounding Out Words Is the Best Way to Teach Reading.” (accessed April 21, 2017).