Omaha School Focuses on Phonics

Omaha World-Herald

American educators pushed phonics aside in the 1980s and 1990s in favor of the "whole language" approach, a sort of immersion philosophy that focused on reading for meaning and exposure to literature. It's sometimes called sight reading, or simply memorization. But whole language suffered a setback after California adopted it and test scores plummeted. A National Reading Panel, which Congress created in the late 1990s to evaluate the best techniques for teaching reading, confirmed the benefits of "systematic phonics instruction." Since then, many districts have adopted "balanced literacy," which incorporates elements of both whole language and phonics.

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