The purposes of this study were to determine the difference between selected groups of fourth grade pupils instructed by proficient teachers of phonics and those instructed by non-proficient teachers, and to determine the difference in pupils' achievement when students are divided into groups based on the number of years of teaching experience and the number of college or graduate reading methods courses of the instructor. Results indicated that pupils instructed by proficient phonics teachers obtained significantly higher scores than students instructed by non-proficient phonics teachers, and teachers' knowledge of phonics generalizations was significantly related to pupils' achievement in phonics. Other findings were that boys and girls seemed to have learned phonics to about the same degree of efficiency, kindergarten children learned phonics with approximately the same degree of efficiency as non-kindergarten pupils, pupils of average intelligence learned more than below average pupils, phonics knowledge is not highly correlated with years of service, and the number of reading methods courses was positively related to teachers' ability to acquire phonics knowledge. (Author/RB)