By Juliana Worrell In his State of the State message, Gov. Phil Murphy called for introducing new initiatives to teach children in the state “the fundamentals of reading — like sounding out letters and combining them into words.” “It is simple: an emphasis on phonics in reading instruction is essential to the lifelong success of our children,” the governor said. As the head of K-8 education for the Uncommon Schools network, which educates more than 19,000 students, including 8,000 mostly economically disadvantaged students in Camden and Newark, I couldn’t agree more with the governor. What we …