SOUND IT OUT, READ IT RIGHT: ENHANCING WORD RECOGNITION, DECODING ACCURACY, AND READING FLUENCY THROUGH PHONICS-BASED LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Building strong reading skills starts with mastering sounds, recognizing words, and reading with confidence. This study, titled Sound It Out, Read It Right: Enhancing Word Recognition, Decoding Accuracy, and Reading Fluency through Phonics-Based Learning Activities, examines the potential of structured phonics instruction to strengthen foundational literacy among Grade 1 and Grade 2 learners at Camandag Elementary School, Asipulo District, Schools Division of Ifugao. Employing a quantitative approach with a one-group pretest–posttest design, the study proposes interactive phonics activities involving letter–sound recognition, phoneme blending, word-building exercises, and guided oral reading. Learners' performance will be assessed using reading tests, with data analyzed through descriptive statistics and pairedsamples t-tests. Illustrative findings involving 30 learners showed an increase in overall mean scores from 11.50 to 22.92 out of 30, with improvements in word recognition, decoding accuracy, and reading fluency. These simulated results suggest the potential of phonics-based activities to make early reading instruction more engaging, accessible, and skill-focused. However, actual classroom data are required to establish effectiveness. The study highlights the value of systematic, learner-centered phonics instruction in building confident readers and provides a practical foundation for evidence-informed literacy interventions in primary education