“The more you read, the more you will know. The more you learn, the more places you will go. This quote from Dr. Seuss explains the importance of reading. Knowing how to read is very important to be successful in life. In 2009, a national study conducted by the National Center for Educational Statistics recorded that 67% of 4th grade students, 75% of 8th grade students, and 74% of 12th grade students were not reading at a advanced level. This will cause many problems as the child progresses through life and subsequently into adulthood. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), 43% read at the lowest literacy level 2 (“Who Needs Phonics”). They will not be able to apply for jobs, stigmatized in society and may cause their children to be illiterate too. To reduce the alarming rate of seven million illiterate children and give them the chance to have a better life, it is necessary to integrate a method to teach them to read better. There are numerous ways to teach a child to read. However, most methods can be divided into two groups; the comprehensive linguistic approach or phonetics. There has been and still is a great debate about which method is the best. The method that represents the best strategy for teaching reading to children aged six to ten is phonics. Phonics teaches people to read by connecting sounds with letters or groups of letters in an alphabetic writing system. Phonics helps improve a student's sense of phonemic awareness; the ability to listen, identify and use phonemes; the simplest sound made by a letter. The main goal of phonics is to help novice readers identify new written words by blending the phonetic pattern... in the center of the paper... I." Overcoming Dyslexia: Phonics Helps Dyslexics Learn. Reading Horizons, n.d. Web. November 19, 2013. Shanahan, Timothy. THE NATIONAL READING PANEL REPORT: Practical Advice for Teachers http://www.learningpt.org., n.d. Web. Sweet, Robert W. "NRRF - Illiteracy : an incurable disease or negligence in education?" NRRF - Illiteracy: an incurable disease or negligence in education? Www.nrrf.org, 1996. Web. 19 November 2013 : Phonics is the way of teaching reading." Ashbrook. Ed. Terrence Moore. Np, January 2004. Web. November 12, 2013."What is phonetics?" Reading Worksheets Grammar Comprehension Lesson Plans. K12reader.com, n.d. Web. November 19, 2013. “Who Needs Phonics.” Who needs phonics. 2013.