This quantitative exploratory causal-comparative study investigated the relationship between public and private K-3 schoolteachers' perceptions of their pedagogical content knowledge and instructional practices of phonemic awareness and phonics, the two best predictors of reading comprehension proficiency. Gough and Tunmer's (1986) Simple View of Reading (SVR), updated by Hoover and Tunmer (2021), provided the theoretical framework for this study. Research question one examined the associations between K-3 public and private teachers' knowledge of phonemic awareness and phonics skills for word recognition ability proficiency. Research question two examined the associations between K-3 public and private teachers' instructional practice of phonemic awareness and phonics skills for word recognition ability proficiency. Convenience sampling of certified kindergarten through third-grade teachers in public and private schools for online survey participation occurred through social media. The categorical independent variable is teachers' place of employment (public or private) in clustered grade levels, K-1 and 2-3. The dependent continuous ratio variable is the score on the anonymous "K-3 Teachers' Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Knowledge and Instructional Practices Survey." Aggregated survey data was statistically analyzed using an unbalanced two-way factorial ANOVA. Data yielded strong statistically significant results (p-value < 0.05) for differences between school type (public and private) with a p-value of 0.0032 but weakly supported grade level significance with a p-value of 0.09. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]