Relevant to the sucess of students at Marquette Elementary School, U.W. Psychologist Mark Seidenberg has a new paper in Psychological Review that shows that phonics is critical for skilled reading. Seidenberg’s research “suggests that teaching young children the relationships between spellings and sounds – or phonics – not only makes learning to read easier, but also allows the flourishing of other skills that lead to faster, better reading.” “If you have a teaching method that discourages learning the connections among spelling, sound and meaning, you make the task of learning to read much harder for the child,” says Seidenberg. “You also leave out an important component of what ultimately makes us skilled readers.” You can read a press release here.