She concludes that the research shows convincingly that children who are taught phonics have a clear advantage over those who are not. One of the reasons for the conflicting results was that many of the look-say studies were carried out only over the first school year which was not long enough to bring out the drawback. Also, some children learn to read regardless of method and that too caused confusion. And then there were studies with bias, unconscious or otherwise, and others with flawed statistics. Dr. Chall supports her arguments with quotes and figures from her in-depth analysis of the literature.
Combined methods are now more or less the norm.
Dr. Chall mentions the case for combined methods though it isn't her main focus. Sight words have an important place, especially for irregular words which don't sound as they are spelt, and to give children a jump-start in the early years. The sight method relies on memory, however, whereas phonics is based on logic, and logic is always preferable as a teaching method. In the long run children need a good grounding in phonics if they are to become independent self-educating readers. All rights reserved.