ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Elementary schools across the region are changing up how they teach kids to read.

That move is line with a push at the state level to move away from a style of teaching that had kids learn whole words and try to pick up their meaning by seeing them within a sentence or story.

But those at Gates Chili say the latest research shows that approach doesn't work as well as phonics.

"So our kindergarteners are learning basic words like cat and hat … go into first grade and start to build off of that and start to build more complex words so they have more sounds within those words and there's also other phonics patterns in there that students can learn but pose a few more challenges for them and that's where we talk with colleagues about using the research to be very ex

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