What is the goal of teaching phonics in an educational setting?

The goal of teaching phonics in an educational setting primarily revolves around fostering phonetic reading skills independently. Phonics instruction is designed to help students understand the relationship between letters and sounds, enabling them to decode words and read words accurately. By developing phonetic reading skills, learners gain the ability to sound out new words, which is crucial for independent reading and literacy development. This foundational skill lays the groundwork for further reading comprehension and vocabulary development, but it is specifically aimed at empowering students to read on their own.

While improving vocabulary comprehension, enhancing storytelling abilities, and developing imaginative writing are valuable educational goals, they are not the central focus of phonics instruction. Phonics is fundamentally about decoding and the mechanics of reading, which leads to greater reading fluency and confidence when encountering new texts.