Phonics

//ˈfɒnɪks// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The study of how the sounds of words are represented by spelling. uncountable
  2. 2
    teaching reading by training beginners to associate letters with their sound values wordnet
  3. 3
    A method of teaching elementary reading based on the phonetic interpretation of normal spelling. uncountable

    "Phonics has gone in and out of style for decades, and the current conflict over how to teach reading is only the latest in a tug-of-war that dates to the 19th century."

  4. 4
    Phonetics. uncountable
  5. 5
    Acoustics. uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
acousticsphonetics

Example

More examples

"Phonics has gone in and out of style for decades, and the current conflict over how to teach reading is only the latest in a tug-of-war that dates to the 19th century."

Etymology

From phon- + -ics.

Related phrases

synthetic phonics

More for "phonics"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.