Letter: Personal experience with value of phonics
This is in response to Debra J. Saunders' Feb. 17 column about teaching phonics in elementary education:
As an 85-year-old woman who grew up in a time when the teaching of phonics was considered unnecessary, I can tell you that I have been frustrated my entire life by the difficulty of sounding out and pronouncing words properly.
My mother, who went to school in a one-room schoolhouse and learned phonics, often questioned why phonics was not being taught to me. In those days, parents didn't question methods of teaching like they would today. So for me, there is no question that phonics should be taught in every elementary school in the country.
Ruth Ann Wiesemann
Lindenhurst
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