In which way does phonics instruction support reading skills?

Phonics instruction supports reading skills primarily by teaching the relationships between sounds and letters, which is essential for decoding words. This approach helps students understand how to break words down into their constituent sounds and then map those sounds to the corresponding letters or letter combinations. As students learn these sound-letter relationships, they become more proficient at reading unfamiliar words and improve their overall reading fluency.

This method contrasts sharply with approaches that emphasize memorization of whole words without a focus on phonetic components, as well as methods that solely concentrate on sight words or ensure that all texts are phonetic. By integrating phonics instruction, educators equip students with tools to systematically approach reading, enabling them to tackle a wider variety of texts and enhance their literacy skills effectively.