California’s reading wars may finally be over. After decades of debate over how to teach reading, a new bill aims to use phonics to solve the state’s literacy crisis.

Phonics was one of the tried and true methods that was used to teach reading back in the day (I’m almost 80). Even now, I use it to sound out new words that I come across.

More American schools are now favoring the “science of reading" which focuses on phonics and vocabulary building block lessons over traditional “whole language" teaching.

Inside the national effort to spread the science of reading and improve U.S. reading proficiency rates through phonics-based instruction.

This approach to teaching is explicitly built on new analyses of the most robust research studies undertaken to determine what are the most effective ways to teach phonics, reading, and writing.

There are many theories about the best way to teach reading: science of reading, whole language, balanced literacy. So what works best?

Every school district in New York must revert to teaching phonics in grades pre-K through third, starting this fall, the Board of Regents decided Monday.

Lucy Calkins, a leading literacy expert, has rewritten her curriculum to include a fuller embrace of phonics and the science of reading. Critics may not be appeased.

The reading wars have raged for decades. But there is a conclusive answer: The phonics method works.