I can't find anyone out there that advocates teaching only phonics. It's a step in the process of learning to read that, if left to teachers that were taught under a non-evidence based approach, many try to skip.

They don't say "only teach phonics", they say "always teach phonics no matter what even if it fails a significant number of students". It's an issue of forcing teachers to do things they know won't work or aren't working.

I'm not saying there aren't bad teachers, and I agree that's a problem and that the solution (get good people to be teachers and give them the autonomy to be good) depends on addressing it. But using bad teachers as a reason to strip all teachers of their autonomy is a huge step back.

> It's an issue of forcing teachers to do things they know won't work or aren't working.

So many teachers at this point have been falsely taught that phonics doesn't work, that many skip thinking they are doing the right thing. We need them to try to teach phonics. Yes, there are some students it won't work for, such as those with hearing problems. However, those students should be in specialized programs already. For everyone without hearing problems, we need them to try.

> So many teachers at this point have been falsely taught that phonics doesn't work, that many skip thinking they are doing the right thing.

Maybe. There's a lot of guessing about what teachers are doing in this thread; I'd be interested in a survey of what they're actually doing.

> For everyone without hearing problems, we need them to try.

Maybe. The UK has been going hard on phonics and while scores went way up for the next couple years, the effects on the years afterwards were real bad.

Exactly. You also need to learn word definitions as well as grammar and sentence structure. Leave out any of the pieces of the puzzle and you are handicapping the student.