Phonics is an approach to teaching some aspects of literacy, by developing students’ knowledge and understanding of the relationship between written symbols and sounds. This involves the skills of hearing, identifying and using the patterns of sounds or phonemes to read written language. The aim is to systematically teach students the relationship between these sounds and the written spelling patterns, or graphemes, which represent them. Phonics emphasises the skills of decoding new words by sounding them out and combining or ‘blending’ the sound-spelling patterns.

1. Phonics has a positive impact overall (+5 months) with very extensive evidence and is an important component in the development of early reading skills, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

2. The teaching of phonics should be explicit and systematic to support children in making connections between the sound patterns they hear in words and the way that these words are written.

3. The teaching of phonics should be matched to children’s current level of skill in terms of their phonemic awareness and their knowledge of letter sounds and patterns (graphemes).

4. Phonics improves the accuracy of the child's reading but not necessarily their comprehension. It is important that children are successful in making progress in all aspects of reading including comprehension, the development of vocabulary and spelling, which should also be taught explicitly.

The average impact of the adoption of phonics approaches is about an additional five months' progress over the course of a year.

Phonics approaches have been consistently found to be effective in supporting younger students to master the basics of reading, with an average impact of an additional five months’ progress. Research suggests that phonics is particularly beneficial for younger students (4–7-year-olds) as they begin to read. Teaching phonics is more effective on average than other approaches to early reading (such as whole language or alphabetic approaches), though it should be emphasised that effective phonics techniques are usually embedded in a rich literacy environment for early readers and are only one part of a successful literacy strategy.

While there have been fewer studies examining phonics with older readers, there is evidence that it can be a positive approach. With any reading intervention, careful diagnosis is required on the difficulties that the reader is experiencing, regardless of age. If an older reader is struggling with decoding, phonics approaches will still be appropriate. Where readers are struggling with vocabulary or comprehension, other interventions may be more appropriate.

There is some variation in impact between different phonological approaches. Synthetic phonics approaches have higher impacts, on average, than analytic approaches. Analytic phonics approaches has also been studied less overall (only 9 studies). The small number of analogic phonics approaches identified in this review (6 studies) have a negative impact on average.

Local studies around phonics intervention programmes show positive impacts for students’ literacy outcomes in general, including for students with spoken language difficulties. The use of phonics has been increasing in Aotearoa New Zealand classrooms, with studies indicating that most teachers feature phonics approaches and programmes to some degree within their literacy lessons. However, studies also indicate that teacher understandings of effective phonics instruction practice may be weak or variable.  

Phonics approaches aim to quickly develop students’ word recognition and spelling through developing students’ ability to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes (the smallest unit of spoken language), and to teach them the relationship between phonemes and the graphemes (written letters or combinations of letters) that represent them. Successfully implementing a phonics might involve:

• Using a systematic approach that explicitly teaches students a comprehensive set of letter-sound relationships through an organised sequence
• Training staff to ensure they have the necessary linguistic knowledge and understanding
• Carefully monitoring progress to ensure that phonics programmes are responsive and provide extra support where necessary
• Carefully consider any adaptions to systematic programmes that might reduce impact

Good implementation of phonics programmes will also consider students’ wider reading skills and will identify where students are struggling with aspects of reading other than decoding that might be targeted through other approaches such as the explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies.

Where phonics is delivered as an intervention targeted at specific students, regular sessions (up to four times a week), of 30 minutes or so over a period of up to 12 weeks appear to be the most successful structure.

Overall, the median costs of implementing a phonics intervention are estimated as very low. The costs associated with teaching phonics arise from the need for specific resources and professional training, the majority of which are initial start-up costs paid during the first year of delivery.

Whilst the median cost estimate for phonics programmes is very low, the range of prices between available programmes and the option to purchase additional ongoing training and support for teaching staff means that costs can range from very low to low. Evidence suggests that the effectiveness of phonics is related to the student's stage of reading development, so it is important that teachers have professional development in effective assessment as well as in the use of particular phonics techniques and materials.

These cost estimates assume that schools are already paying for staff salaries to deliver interventions, facilities to host lessons, and basic stationery materials for staff and students. These are all pre-requisite costs of implementing a phonics intervention, without which the cost is likely to be higher.

Local research:

Carson, K. L., Gillon, G. T., & Boustead, T. M. (2013). Classroom phonological awareness instruction and literacy outcomes in the first year of school.

Chapman, J. W., Greaney, K. T., Arrow, A. W., & Tunmer, W. E. (2018). Teachers’ use of phonics, knowledge of language constructs, and preferred word identification prompts in relation to beginning readers. Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, 23(1), 87-104.

Tunmer, W. E., Chapman, J. W., Greaney, K. T., Prochnow, J. E., & Arrow, A. W. (2013). Why the New Zealand National Literacy Strategy has failed and what can be done about it: Evidence from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2011 and Reading Recovery monitoring reports. Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, 18(2), 139-180.

Chapman, J. W., Greaney, K. T., Arrow, A. W., & Tunmer, W. E. (2017). Phonics Use, Teachers’ Knowledge of Language Constructs, and Teachers’ Literacy Teaching Practices in New Zealand: Prospects for Struggling Readers in a Predominantly Whole Language Instructional System. In annual meeting of the International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.