Reading researchers find, yet again, that children need instruction in phonics

Heated arguments about the most effective form of reading instruction continue to polarize the teaching community, but yet another review of the research has found beyond dispute that "teaching that makes the rules of phonics clear will ultimately be more successful than teaching that does not." So conclude five professors of psychology, linguistics and pediatrics in a cover story in this month's Scientific American, "How Should Reading Be Taught?" by Keith Rayner, Barbara Foorman, Charles Perfetti, David Pesetsky, and Mark Seidenberg, Scientific American, March 2002.