What happens if phonics is abandoned?

• A. Reading scores drop
• B. Reading scores rise
• C. No effect
• D. Scores vary

Answer: (A)

Phonics gives students a reliable way to decode words by linking letters to their sounds and blending them into readable words. This decoding ability is essential for reading unfamiliar text quickly and accurately, which supports fluent reading and overall comprehension. If phonics instruction is abandoned, students lose a key strategy for decoding. They may rely on memorized sight words, but when faced with new or morphologically complex words, decoding becomes slow and error-prone. That slow, laborious reading reduces fluency and makes understanding harder, which in turn lowers reading performance on assessments that measure accuracy, speed, and comprehension. This effect is especially noticeable for beginning readers and when texts include unfamiliar vocabulary.