It teaches through memorization of word pictures and guessing. Unlike Chinese or Japanese which are picture languages, the English language is a phonetic language. With the exception of the United States which dropped phonics in the 1930's, all other countries that have a phonetic language, teach reading through phonics. There are only 44 sounds while there are about 1 million words in English. These facts readily explain why having to memorize 44 sounds as opposed to memorizing hundreds of thousands of words is the most efficient way to learn to read.
Children learn to talk by imitating sounds and then combining the sounds to form words.
The brain is programmed to learn language in this fashion. Therefore, the most efficient way to learn to read is through phonics because it teaches children to read the same way they learned to talk. Below grade level reading achievement Slow reading Poor comprehension Fatigue after reading only for a short while Poor spelling skills Lack of enjoyment from reading Some children have auditory discrimination problems. This may have been the result of having chronic ear infections when they were young. Others may be born with this learning disability.