What is the best way to teach phonics?

In 1997, amidst the tumult and chaos of the "reading wars," the national government convened a non-partisan panel of some of the nation's most esteemed reading experts, including Linnea Ehri, Timothy Shanahan, and Sally Shaywitz, to answer the critical question: what are the scientifically proven and thus most effective ways to teach children how to read?

Three years later, after objectively reviewing "gold standard" scientifically validated research reports, that august body issued the National Reading Panel Report, an objective, comprehensive scientific report revealing profound insights and conclusive findings consistently corroborated over the last two decades. One of those findings was a significant difference in approach and effectiveness between systematic and unsystematic phonics instruction.

To properly reference the committee's work, I'm providing verbatim quotes from its final report.

First, the researchers defined systematic phonics.

What is systematic phonics?

"The hallmarks of systematic phonics programs are that children receive explicit, systematic instruction in a set of prespecified associations between letters and sounds, and they are taught how to use them to read, typically in texts containing controlled vocabulary." (Emphasis added)

The report also drew a clear distinction between systematic phonics instruction and unsystematic approaches, such as the whole word or look say method, and the whole language approach with its three cueing system known as 'balanced literacy.'

"Whole language teachers believe that phonics instruction should be integrated into meaningful reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities and taught incidentally when they perceive it is needed. As children attempt to use written language for communication, they will discover naturally that they need to know about letter-sound relationships and how letters function in reading and writing. When this need becomes evident, teachers are expected to respond by providing the instruction. Whole language programs do not prespecify the relations to be taught. It is presumed that exposing children to letter-sound relations as they read text will foster incidental learning of the relations they need to develop as readers."

Finally, after using 38 studies and 66 treatment-control groups, the panel posed the following question:

"Does systematic phonics instruction help children learn to read more effectively than unsystematic phonics instruction or instruction teaching no phonics?"

Their answer was unequivocal.

"Systematic phonics instruction makes a more significant contribution to children's growth in reading than do alternative programs providing unsystematic or no phonics instruction." (Emphasis added)