Each modality combination has weaknesses and strengths.
A major disadvantage of the Auditory modality is the poor correspondence, particularly in English, between the grapheme and its sound.
To make this point more emphatic, Bernard Shaw gave us this example... "GHOTI," which can be sounded out to be "FISH."
The "GH" is "F" as in "ENOUGH," The "O" is "I" as in "WOMEN," and the "TI" is"SH" as in "NATION."
For children who have auditory processing problems, the Phonetic Approach can be a major hurdle.
Take for example the auditory process of Sound Blending. When letters are sounded out, they often are processed as a string of individual sounds.
The reader must pull these pieces together to recognize the word. For example combine "S" (as in "Sally"), "U" (as in "Up"), "P" (as in "Peter") and "R" (as in "Her") and you get the word...
NOTES: Here is a neat comment of the poor grapheme/phoneme correspondence in English.
NOTES: Here are two examples of Sound Blending.
NOTES: Here is some more information on Phonics.
NOTES: Here is yet more information on Phonics.
NOTES: Here is more than you'll ever want to know about Phonics.