phonics
phonics Lexical Profile
phonics Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A method of teaching people to read and pronounce words by correlating spoken speech sounds with individual letters or groups of letters in an alphabetic writing system.
"The elementary school curriculum emphasizes systematic phonics to help young children decode unfamiliar words."
The branch of physics or linguistics that deals with sound, acoustic phenomena, and vocal pronunciation.
"In earlier centuries, scholars used the term phonics to describe the general science of sound and acoustics."
Word Nuance & Usage
Although plural in form, "phonics" is treated as a singular uncountable noun in standard English. Do not confuse it with "phonetics", which is the scientific study of human speech sounds rather than an instructional method for reading.
• Rhymes for phonics
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
First recorded in the late 17th century in the sense of acoustics, derived from the adjective "phonic" (from Ancient Greek phone, meaning "voice" or "sound") plus the suffix "-ics". The modern educational sense referring to reading instruction emerged in the early 20th century.