Reading research in the past three decades has confirmed the complex but symbiotic relationship that exists between reading and writing and oral language, the reading and spelling errors in children with learning disabilities are preceded by errors in oral skills and histories of slow language growth. Thus a speech language pathologist has a role to play in identifying and preventing the reading difficulties before they present themselves with typical errors of letter reversals, reading and spellings. The aim of the study is to compare the phonic skills of high and low academic achievers (8-12 years) in Marathi and English and to identify if certain parameters differ significantly across the two groups. The participants comprised of 42 children. They were classified under two groups, as high academic achievers (HA) and low achievers (LA). High achievers scored 75% or more marks in their academic performance and low achievers scored 35% or below in their academic performance. Three sub-parameters which were considered under phonics include alphabetic skills, reading and decoding skills and spelling. The Scholastic Red, 2002 was used for assessing English phonic skills and the Marathi checklist was developed based on the guidelines of Scholastic Red. The participant received a correct score and was awarded one point for an item. After the measures were administered to all the participants their responses were recorded, scored and subjected to a series of statistical analysis. Significant differences were observed in the three parameters of the phonics skills in both languages, however English language scores were higher than Marathi language.