In short,phonetic-based reading attempts to break written language down into small and simple components. It is taught by having children use letter sounds and letter symbols. Using this technique, children identify letters with certain sounds and piece them back together – a process is called decoding. This allows children to see a new word, take what they previously knew about the sounds that each letter makes, and put it together to sound out the new word. Think of phonics-based reading as playing with letter blocks. It allows a student to switch out a “h” with a “c” to get either “how” or “cow”. If the child were to combine the first two words, he would get “chow”, and so on.