Synthetic phonics and learning to read

A key point of contention in the ‘reading wars’ is the best way to teach children the alphabetic code, or phonics. Some researchers and educators argue that phonics should be taught in the context of meaningful sentences, while others contend that a systematic and explicit approach to phonics instruction is more effective. Speakers debated the proposition; “Phonics in context is not enough: synthetic phonics and learning to read”.