Children who have been trained
explicitly to decode words are far more likely to read successfully than children who have had limited training or no training" (Research, n.d., p. 2). A report by the American Psychological Society says that "elementary-school teachers who make phonics the major component to reading education are using the best approach to helping their students become skilled, independent readers" (American, 2002, p. 1).
In the 1980's California reacted against using phonics, took it out of their curriculum completely, and focused on whole language education (Research, n.d.). The term whole language means "reading will happen if you just immerse kids in language" (Jones, n.d., p. 2)