The goal of phonics instruction is to help students develop the alphabetic principle. Students who understand the alphabetic principle know that the sounds of spoken words are mapped onto written words in systematic ways. As students develop understandings of this principle, they become adept at using letter-sound correspondences to figure out unrecognized words. Command of the alphabetic principle is the foundation for accurate word recognition and a prerequisite for fluency-well-documented characteristics of skillful readers. These attributes are critical because they enable readers to invest their energies in the real business of reading--comprehension.

Phonics instruction is an essential component of beginning reading instruction. Students' knowledge of the alphabetic system is related in dynamic ways to their knowledge of letter names and their awareness that spoken words consist of sounds or phonemes; the application of the alphabetic principle includes the use of individual letter-sound correspondences as well as consolidated units of letters recognized as patterns; and knowledge of the alphabetic principle enables readers to approximate pronunciations that they check against words in their oral vocabularies. The intention of beginning reading instruction is not only to help students gain control of the alphabetic principle but also to promote an active stance toward learning, foster self-regulating behaviors, and nurture a love of reading. In addition, reading is more than word recognition and that phonics instruction should not crowd out literature-and language-rich instruction. (Baumann et al, 1998)

Use Of The Term ‘Explicit’ In Phonics Instruction
Dictionary definitions indicate that the word explicit may refer to precise, fully developed, clearly expressed instruction. Our explorations revealed two different but related uses for the phrase "explicit phonics instruction." Sometimes the phrase is used to describe the precise, fully developed, and clearly expressed instructions provided to teachers in scripted phonics programs. These programs make it perfectly clear what teachers are to say and do. At other times, explicit phonics instruction is used to describe precise and clearly expressed information about letter-sound correspondences that teachers explain to students--information that may or may not be scripted for teachers. Both of these uses are common. However, dictionary definitions also reveal that explicit can be used in reference to precise, fully developed, and well-formulated knowledge. Although references to explicit phonics knowledge are less common than references to explicit phonics instruction, discussions about how to help students develop explicit knowledge of the alphabetic principle bring into focus the goal of phonics instruction. (Cunningham & Cunningham, 2000)

Explicit Instruction For Teachers
A substantial body of research has attempted to determine whether non-scripted phonics instruction or scripted phonics programs with explicit instruction for teachers lead to greater student achievement. Results of these studies have been inconclusive.

A long-standing and growing body of research confirms that teacher expertise is a more significant factor in student reading achievement than teaching method. Studies of exemplary teaching identify instructional flexibility and responsiveness as hallmarks of accomplished teachers--teachers whose students consistently outperform their peers in reading achievement. This research describes how the most effective teachers recognize and address student confusion by quickly providing additional clarifying examples and how they notice and respond to a lack of student engagement by changing the pace of the lesson or modifying the activity. (Farstrup, 2002)

Explicit Instruction For Students
Often the term explicit is used to refer to the phonics instruction that teachers offer students. Used in this way, explicit phonics instruction is typically synonymous with direct instruction. In this part-to-whole approach, teachers isolate letter-sound correspondences, teach students how to synthesize the sounds represented by letters, provide blending and spelling practice with words that contain the targeted letter-sound correspondence, and supervise application of this knowledge as students read connected text that is composed primarily of words with taught letter-sound correspondences (i.e., decodable texts).

Explicit Student Knowledge
Many teachers and researchers have observed that explicit understanding or cognitive clarity about the alphabetic principle emerges not from a single instructional approach but from instruction that integrates aspects of direct, part-to-whole instruction and embedded, whole-to-part-to-whole instruction. In embedded phonics instruction, teachers assist students in developing explicit understandings of the alphabetic principle through guided discovery and analysis. They draw students' attention to a targeted letter-sound correspondence found in a familiar text or a writing experience. Teachers engage students in reading and spelling words with the targeted letter-sound correspondence as they make words and break them apart using a variety of materials such as dry erase boards, magnetic letters, or letter tiles. Teachers use carefully planned searching and sorting activities to monitor how well students understand a lesson's focus and to arouse students' curiosities about how words work. They also coach students in word recognition and spelling strategies during authentic reading and writing events. In addition, some teachers use word walls as visual reminders of accumulated phonics instruction, a resource for independent reading and spelling, and springboards for various reading and spelling activities. (Baumann et al, 1998)

Research on exemplary primary-grade teachers confirms that the most accomplished teachers have moved beyond the instructional debate. These teachers have in-depth and explicit understandings of the phonological system; this knowledge enables them to integrate direct and embedded approaches with minimal instructional support. Their instruction features aspects of direct instruction that include teacher explanations, isolation of sounds in words, blending of sounds into words, and supervised practice in reading and spelling words. However, these teachers' practices also feature aspects of embedded instruction that include coaching the application of word attack strategies in authentic reading and writing events as well as guiding the discovery of unfamiliar or unusual letter-sound correspondences (e.g., the medial letter-sound correspondence in said). This integration of instruction provides multiple and varied opportunities for students to develop clear understandings of the alphabetic principle, fosters an active learning stance, promotes self-regulating behaviors, and engenders a fascination for uncovering phonics patterns. (International Reading Association, 1999)

Use Of The Term Systematic In Phonics Instruction
Dictionary definitions indicate that systematic means orderly, planned, and coordinated. In the context of phonics instruction, systematic is used sometimes to refer to instructional progression, sometimes to a set of activities and materials, and sometimes to the schedule of instruction. Although our conversations explored different dimensions of systematic phonics instruction, they also included discussions of what it means for students to develop systematic knowledge of the alphabetic principle. (Pressley, 2001)

A Systematic Instructional Progression
At times systematic is used in reference to a systematic or orderly progression for introducing letter-sound correspondences. Teachers typically make use of an instructional sequence outlined in a commercial program or in a district curriculum guide. (Pressley, 2001)

A Systematic Set Of Activities And Materials
Logically, effective phonics instruction features systematic activities and materials that are designed so that teachers can introduce a targeted letter-sound correspondence. Then they engage students in coordinated activities with materials that ensure sufficient practice in reading and spelling words with the targeted correspondence. Some research findings suggest that students are best served when teachers follow programs that provide coordinated activities and materials. (Pressley, 2001)

A Systematic Schedule For Phonics Instruction
A systematic, planned schedule for phonics lessons is an important feature of effective phonics instruction. All the primary-grade teachers we know concur: Phonics instruction is too critical to leave to chance. However, it is argued that the most powerful learning is situated in both planned and spontaneous instruction. Research on exemplary teachers suggests that the most effective teachers possess remarkable talents for supplementing scheduled phonics instruction with opportunistic and incidental teaching moments. Such teachers are experts at orchestrating a day packed with literacy activities. Their effectiveness, however, is grounded in an explicit knowledge of phonics and a great deal of expertise in managing and motivating student learning that results in systematic understandings. (Taylor, 2000)

Systematic Student Knowledge

Every primary-grade teacher intends for phonics instruction to assist students in developing understandings of the alphabetic principle that are explicit (i.e., fully developed and well formulated) and systematic (i.e., orderly and coordinated). However, we have become increasingly skeptical of a simplistic link between the implementation of systematic instruction and the development of systematic knowledge. For example, many primary-grade teachers noted that when students become aware that spoken words consist of separate sounds or phonemes, become familiar with a few letter names, and learn a few letter-sound correspondences, their knowledge of letter names and letter-sound correspondences often increases greatly, as does their fascination for "sounding out words" in the surrounding world of print. What these students learn continues to be linked to what is taught, but it is also fueled by newly awakened sensitivities to the ways that words work. They begin "seeing" printed words in new ways; these perceptions lead them to wonder why the names Carletta and Charlie begin with the same letter but different sounds and why the word they has a long a sound but is not spelled with the letter a.

Our experiences, and those of many teachers, suggest that once students are phonemically aware and have a grasp of the alphabetic principle they begin organizing knowledge of letter names and letter-sound correspondences in coherent and systematic ways. This systematizing of knowledge may not correspond to the neat, additive phonics progression described in a reading program, and it may proceed at a pace that lags behind or outruns the progression's suggested time frame. We argue that students are at risk of developing superficial and piecemeal understandings rather than coherent and orderly knowledge of the alphabetic principle if teachers impose systematic phonics instruction without monitoring how students organize this information. Similarly, we reason that students are at risk of becoming disenchanted with the world of print if teachers require them to spend significant time in activities that reinforce what they already know but stimulate few, if any, additional insights. (Taylor, 2000)

Is Whole Language Instruction Better Than Phonics?
It is argued that whole language instruction is better than phonics instruction at least in some ways. The emphasis on students’ role in meaning making in whole language theory makes it easier for students in whole language classrooms to make connections between their lives in school and their out-of-school lives. Writing in whole language classrooms, for example, draws on children’s personal experiences, enabling a child who lives in an old apartment building to write a story about cockroaches and another child to write a letter to her dead grandfather. Reading in whole language classrooms also encourages students to draw on their background knowledge and experience – including their experience with other texts – as they construct meaning from texts. Of course, these experiences are never merely personal, since children’s lives unfold in rich social and cultural contexts. Therefore, by assigning a central role for the reader in making sense of texts, whole language classrooms make a place for a range of understandings based on the race-, class-, culture-, and gender-based experiences of students. (Johnson, 1994)

Whole language classrooms also seek to create spaces congenial to the experiences students bring with them to school by moving beyond school-based literacy practices that privilege middle-class points of view over other viewpoints by favoring particular notions of “correctness” (Willinsky, 1994). By respecting students’ evolving understandings, whole language teachers also make room for the possibility of culturally based perspectives different from “official” views.

Whole language teachers also accommodate student differences by acknowledging a range of literacy practices (i.e., students reading and writing for many purposes) and including a variety of reading and writing materials in their classrooms. Additionally, libraries in whole language classrooms are carefully stocked with materials that represent cultural diversity and raise important social, ethical, and historical questions.