A Study On Phonics Teaching Strategy

In history, Phonics was originated in American reading instruction in 1790s. Itwas not until 1960s that Phonics drew great attention of researchers in westerncountries. And Phonics started to become popular when it was 1990s. However, therelationship between Phonics and word decoding/recoding or reading was mostlyexamined, and these studies were mainly conducted among native young children.Based on the situation in China, the present study, using 19 shifted-teachers ofrural primary schools in Ningxia and 105 students of an elementary school inDongguan, aims to investigate the similar situations concerning Chinese EFLbeginning learners (both adults and children) by action research. The action researchreveals that Phonics instruction is good for beginners' pronunciation, word decoding,spelling and reading comprehension, and it explored the effective Phonics teachingstrategies for the beginners.The implications of the study are mainly practical in terms of empirical supportfor the researches concerning the term Phonics instruction for beginning learners. Theresearch not only puts forward innovative suggestions for Phonics instruction, Englishinstruction, and English teacher training in China, but also sheds some light on thefurther theoretical development of the similar researches.