When Phonics Isn't Enough

On this channel, we talk a lot about phonics for readers in general and for dyslexics in particular, but today we want to talk about the question of whether there's a limit to how much phonics can actually help.

It got me diagnosed when I was in third grade and it was the most relieving day of my life because I finally had like kind of a place to hang my hat and say, see, I told you I'm not lazy, definitely not stupid. I just learned differently and like that's totally okay. Be dyslexics, we were often, you know, just set up for failure because, you know, we were given books and tasks that really are not appropriate for the level that we were at.

So how do you expect anyone to be open to learning when their entire relationship with reading, with learning is physical pain? Wish I had understood when I was younger that the fact that my brain worked differently than people meant that I would be good at things in ways that other kids were not going to be good at. I must assume, I can't be dyslexic because letters don't jump up and down for me.

Dyslexia is not a disorder. It is not a disease. Once you sort of own it and embrace it, then you can have the power to deal with it. It's sort of empowering and also enriching to the whole community. To those who don't understand what dyslexia is, that it's not a negative, it's not a problem. It's like we keep saying superpower. Hey, everyone. We're Nick and Sonja, and this is Dyslexia Journey. And today we want to talk about phonics, but in a different way than we often do, because usually we're, you know, having a guest on or talking about something related to how much recently people have discovered the importance of phonics in learning to read generally and for dyslexics in particular.

And, you know, we've always had a nuanced approach in terms of that there can be sometimes different methods that work for different people. But today we're actually looking at a particular article that's making us wonder about some of the limits that there may be for phonics as, particularly as reading becomes more advanced. Yeah, so this was inspired, as Vinny said, or this episode is inspired by an article that we read recently.

So this article was in the Hetchinger Report, published on March 16th of 2026. The title is Southern States Boost Early Reading But Gains Stahl in Middle School, the subtitle, Why the Mississippi Miracle Disappears by Eighth Grade. And the author is Jill Barche. So this is an interesting article because Mississippi and several other Southern states really went all in on phonics when they reformed their reading curriculum, Mississippi in particular, in 2013. And since then, the gains in elementary school kids has been quite amazing.

And so people talk about this Mississippi miracle in reading. And using it as a model for the states. Definitely, yeah. And so the Mississippi approach is really science of reading, emphasizing phonics and basic literacy. And so just to give you one example of this article lists of these gains is that fourth graders in Mississippi went from near the bottom nationally to surpassing the national average by 2024. So that's amazing. That's great.

This article, however, is pointing out that when these students reached eighth grade, their progress stalled. So by 2019, actually, more eighth graders were scoring at the bottom than in 2013. And so this article we read is kind of trying to explore the gap. So what's the problem is, is phonics instruction somehow flawed? Is it that there's not enough emphasis on reading comprehension? Or is it just that instruction just isn't continued through that age range and so on?

So lots of good questions. The article doesn't really have a clear consensus on the fix. I think the article does say that experts broadly agree that background knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension strategies all matter. But there's no light consensus on how to teach that the way that there is consensus around doing phonics. Well, I guess I can't really say there's consensus around doing phonics, but I think it's by far the preferred and scientifically validated method for early reading instruction right now.

Right, right. Okay, so that's kind of the summary of the article. So now we'll start talking about our thoughts and opinions. Yeah, and we mostly, you know, we mostly just wanted to bring it to your attention. It's interesting, right? Obviously, it needs more research. But it's important because, you know, maybe you've been noticing this. Maybe your child, whether they're dyslexic or not, you know, did better, you know, and really had some phonics remediation.

But then now they're starting to be problems again. So it is important, you know, even before we maybe know even more about it to start thinking about it and to start thinking about strategies. So, yeah, we're just going to talk about it a little here. But, of course, we don't have all the answers either because a lot of this research still needs to be done in terms of what would be a gold standard, for example.

Sure. But it did remind us of some things that we emphasize on this channel. One is that, you know, that idea we bring up in lots of different contexts about the balance being difficult sometimes between the time spent in remediation and the time spent doing other things. And, you know, the fact that by the time they're older, background knowledge, you know, perhaps even picking up vocabulary orally, you know, like in terms of just having good conversations or having a lot of good input that maybe isn't even necessarily reading can be so important.

You know, it does show that putting all the time into the phonics instruction, you know, it can be difficult to fit it in, especially, you know, and it doesn't mean it's not important. But trying to keep that balance actually, you know, we've often emphasized that more in terms of mental health and, you know, just happiness and being able to even engage when they're actually then on for doing phonics instruction, especially, you know, if they feel like it's more boring.

But there can be actual gains too, as well as they, as they get more advanced for reading itself. Yeah. And so I think, phonics instruction, I think is, has been proven to be really good in teaching, children, including dyslexic kids to decode words, and to, be able to, to kind of get that first step of like reading what's on the page. And I think what, if we're focusing on that first level skill, what, what we often tend to forget is that, by middle school, they need to be able to, read, like they need to have good reading comprehension.

They need to be able to read material and, and, and synthesize it and understand it. And, plus being able to read for fun and things like that. And so, one piece of advice that we often give on this, this, show is to, keep reading to your kids. And I think this is, especially relevant here because when, when you're reading to your kids, they are exposed to that reading comprehension or they are forced to do that reading comprehension.

They're exposed to all that vocabulary. All that material. Yeah, exactly. Topic, all of it. Yeah. So they're gaining knowledge, they're gaining vocabulary. and so I think, that is super important and, can't be emphasized enough here. Yeah. And I mean, I would go so far as to say, maybe we're thinking about this right now in terms of, you know, almost subject matter, like it's, and that's important, right? It can be important in a particular topic, almost more in a nonfiction kind of way, but applies to fiction as well, because a lot of, you know, what they do later is working with literature that maybe has a slightly different voice, or maybe it's from the past and has a slightly different voice.

And if they've heard that, you know, and you reading to them and, you know, hearing the inflection of how it makes sense, you know, I'm not saying it still wouldn't be a challenge in decoding it. It absolutely can be. but it will help them with that comprehension piece of that kind of piece. And, you know, even getting beyond reading itself and helping for that, perhaps they have an accommodation for some of that where they're hearing it out loud anyway.

So you're giving them an advance just in terms of the comprehension piece at all different, in all different ways that they might encounter it when they're older, hopefully including the reading too, but, but in other ways as well. Yeah, for sure. And I think, that, that actually reminds me of a point. I didn't have this in our outline, but I just thought of it that with accommodations, one could argue that, reading to learn in the traditional sense, it becomes less important.

I mean, so if you're dyslexic kid has accommodations where they get to listen to audio books, or they get to have a reader, if they have someone taking notes for them in class and so on. what, what is most important for their, school career and for their life is, being able to understand things orally. Mm-hmm. So it's important to be developing that as a skill as well. Right. Yeah. It's interesting. So it's like, of course we have this emphasis still on reading in our culture, but it's, so we don't want to de-emphasize the importance of it, but I think it's important also to keep learning as still distinct, learning and engaging with information as distinct from the process of reading itself too.

Yes. That's like a huge tool that we have towards that, right? And that's a lot of places in our society, so it's hard to get by without being able to read things, right? But, but it's also important to keep that distinction, I think. Yeah, definitely. and then, kind of a, a final point on this, particular subtopic is that, kids can get lots of background knowledge, exposure to vocabulary, exposure to story from avenues other than reading, other than, audio books even.

so, yeah, watching shows, listening to podcasts, having good conversation, they can get exposed to all of this, material that will help make them better critical thinkers and better understanders as they grow older. Yeah, and we've talked about it a little bit before here, like in terms of shows, you know, for a story and things like that, but I think we haven't ever talked about it quite that broadly. But I think it's important to think of it that way, that the enrichment and the, you know, ability to learn and process information and all of it can be from so many different interactive ways, other than just interacting with words on a page or on a screen.

Right. So I think if, if your late elementary school kid or middle school kid is spending a lot of time, watching YouTube videos, I mean, obviously as a parent, you want to make sure the content's appropriate and whatnot, but, that's not necessarily a lot of time. That's not necessarily, I guess what I'm trying to say is that's not necessarily, quote, wasted time. Right. Although it's interesting because this leads to a segue in the article where they did talk about screen time as a factor in more of a problematic way.

So did you want to go into that a bit? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's true that kids are just spending more time on screens and less time actually trying to read. I think, I think that's any of us who are parents or have been around kids in the past 10 years know that, you know, empirically. but I think there's been actual studies and measurements as well that bear that out. although I don't, to be, full disclosure, I don't have a particular study to say.

Yeah. It's actually a topic we're pretty interested in. We may down the line, we'll get into it a bit more because we're really curious on how it's changing both in a sort of way of looking at it. Like, oh no, but also in a way of like how much is culturally changing and how much are we supposed to adjust to all that? And it's a really big topic for another video, but it's worth considering.

Yeah. but so the question is really how much does that affect, you know, if kids are spending less time trying to read, then obviously they're not going to be as practiced at reading. I mean, another question is what's the, the, cause and effect. I mean, if kids are not learning to read as fluently, then it's going to be harder for them to read and they're going to be less likely to want to do it.

Right. Right. yeah. So I think, you know, trying to be positive about what the material can be, but also knowing that screen time is likely to be reducing reading is, I mean, they're just, they're both true. Right. So. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's zero sum. There's 24 hours in a day.

so the other thing that I think is interesting and, we, we don't have time or frankly, we haven't done the research necessary to really cover this topic, but I do find it interesting that, the particular article that, that we read about the Mississippi schools, it doesn't question the importance of phonics. it's, so it's, it's more like, posited as, as is, you know, is phonics enough or does it need to continue? I, I do think it's interesting though, that, that a lot of the research, a lot of the early research on phonics that, there was this big meta analysis, this national study that was, the meta analysis that was published in 2021, that really sort of led to this science of reading.

it, it actually originally didn't, claim that phonics helped reading comprehension in middle school. So like, I guess expecting phonics in elementary school to help with reading comprehension in middle school may have been an invalid expectation to begin with. Right. Yeah. so there's definitely more research that needs to be done. so we also need to look, you know, we haven't looked at that, a comprehensive search of all the research that has been done either, but it does seem to be that there's this gap.

At the very least, there is somewhat of a gap here in terms of knowing that's helpful there, but then also knowing that there's the gap, in middle school and comprehension. So that's definitely true, whatever's out there. yeah. So yeah, I guess we just partly are wanting to, this to be food for thought for you, but also, you know, maybe in a sense encouraging, if you're seeing something that looks frustrating, maybe there's some other, you know, that there's just needs to be other tactics.

You can try, and that it's, it's normal in a sense, right? Because there is this gap, like we know that there's this gap. So it's not like your kid is suddenly going backwards. Right. Right. And kind of, I, I guess you can think of this as almost a public service announcement, like be aware also that if, and not to scare anyone, not to give you more things to be worried about. But if, if your child is at grade level in third grade, it doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be, able to read, read, to learn fluently in middle school.

Right. You definitely need to keep on top of it. Right. But also to give hope in that regard, besides possible, you know, remediation strategies or, you know, I guess we didn't get heavily into things like teaching word roots and, and stuff like that. And that's, that's an interesting one because it can be taught in a boring way, but I'm also a big advocate of it if you can teach in an interesting way, because often dyslexics and other people too, right?

Like what sort of the meaning, if we can get more meaning, then it may, then it's more interesting to learn about a bigger word. If you can put it in more context and have more meaning beyond even that, you know, just knowing that, let's say your child needed fewer accommodations and now they need more. It's okay. That's just a mindset shift. You can have, our daughter uses tons of accommodations. And it's quite successful using them.

So knowing that you can be flexible in the thinking that things might not always look the same, even for an individual kid, but that that's okay. It's just, I mean, then it means new strategies, new accommodations, maybe all of that, but it's, it's, it's okay. And it'll be fine. And you can do that. Yeah. So, really just some food for thought. definitely we'll drop a link to that article in the show notes.

we'd love to hear your thoughts. if any of our listeners are in Mississippi, or some of those other, I think Louisiana and Alabama too, also, really went all in on phonics around that same time period. We'd love to hear your experience. and, yeah. Yeah, and just curious about hearing any more thoughts on, on this whole thing, or if you've heard of, you know, other research or other techniques that we may not have heard of, because sometimes there's a lot of things going on in different areas of the country that don't always make it to national attention.

Right. So wherever you are, if you've heard about different techniques for this, or maybe a school that's addressing it, let us know. Thank you.