NYC Implements Phonics-Based Reading Program to Combat National Crisis.

New York City, the largest school district in the US, is implementing mandated phonics lessons in an effort to reverse low literacy rates. The new reading curriculum will upend the current approach and focus on phonics, which teaches children to decode words by sounding out letters and syllables. The move comes as the city and the nation as a whole grapple with a reading crisis, with only about a third of US fourth-graders reading proficiently.