[sinbad17]

Everyone here is a little right and a little wrong and it all boils down to how you define reading. If you see reading as merely being the ability to put sound to symbols then phonics is a good choice; however, if you define reading as I do "the ability to unite sound with the appropriate symbols in order to derive understanding of a communique" then no one method is adequate.

[TopQuark]

if you define reading as I do "the ability to unite sound with the appropriate symbols in order to derive understanding of a communique"

This is the root of the problem: what you defined is thinking (conceptualization), not reading. When you teach a child to walk, you do not even bother with meaningfulness of that ability, how it will be used and for what purpose. That will come later; for now, you just help the child to learn to walk. The same is with counting: when you teach it, do you bother with the question of meaning here? I hope not.

Reading is about mechanical intake of information. How that information is processed is an altogether different part of education.

[pepperdog]

Huh????