Comparing international test results with Canada and Ireland, we suggest that children would benefit from a broader approach. Phonics should be part of it but we should use more stories they enjoy and encourage them to engage with texts and images in different ways as well. 6/6

Synthetic phonics, often referred to simply as “phonics”, works by teaching correspondences between letters and sounds. The approach works best when those correspondences are very regular. That is the case in Spanish, for example. Unfortunately, in English it isn’t. 4/6