Editor's note: With low reading proficiency scores across the state, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin is exploring the causes and consequences of low literacy. This article is part of the By the Book ...

New research has shown that learning to read by sounding out words (a teaching method known as phonics) has a dramatic impact on the accuracy of reading aloud and comprehension. There has been intense ...

Presenter 1: When the words get tricky, phonics get all sticky, blending them together doesn’t work the same. You can see that all tricky words don’t look the way they should be heard. Presenter 2: ...

Presenter 1: I’ve found these new words, but I can’t seem to read them. Presenter 2: If you can’t decode them then they might be tricky words. ‘n-o’ isn’t ‘noh’, it should be ‘no’. Presenter 1: Ah ...