Four decades after education reformer Marian Joseph pushed phonics in schools to change the way young readers learn, California embraces it.

California’s reading wars may finally be over. After decades of debate over how to teach reading, a new bill aims to use phonics to solve the state’s literacy crisis.

Having realized that her own grandson, then a first-grader, was having difficulty with reading, Joseph began pestering the state’s politicians to adopt phonics, persuading then-Gov. Pete Wilson ...

1. Teaching phonics is great and absolutely necessary, but beware of non-phonetic words such as those spelled with “ough” (tough, bough, ought, through, though). 2.