Learning to read in English is not just about using context (e.g., pictures) to guess the meaning of the words on the page but also about being aware of the sounds in words and their use. This ability, called “phonological awareness” (PA), is the foundation of learning how to read in an alphabetic language like English. Traditionally, L2 (second and foreign language) reading has not focused on using PA or phonics (teaching based on correlation of sounds with symbols) but instead on memorizing whole words or guessing the word from context. However, a growing number of experiments have shown that an understanding of the individual sounds in a word and their correspondence to letters is necessary to develop the ability to read and decode words in an L2.
Click here for original story, Perceiving sound-letter associations in English can help people learn to read it better
Source: Phys.org