This week President Obama made his State of the Union Presidential Address. I don’t want to critique his plan but I thought this was a powerful statement: “In the 21st century, the best anti-poverty program around is a world-class education. And in this country, the success of our children cannot depend more on where they live than on their potential.”
Regardless of political affiliations, no one can disagree with that statement. Every child deserves a chance to be educated with the best materials available. Of course this isn’t always possible. But the instant I heard him make that statement I yearned for every child to be able to be taught with an explicit systematic phonics program like Reading Horizons. I had been reviewing some of the video recordings of our success stories earlier that day and was reinvigorated hearing teachers and students explain what our program has done for their lives. I would love for every student and every struggling reader to be able to be taught with our program. I truly believe that students would find more success and the number of struggling readers would decrease dramatically, not just marginally. I truly believe it would make a HUGE difference in education and the success of all students! My amendment to President Obama’s comment would be that every student should be taught using an explicit, systematic phonics program like Reading Horizons- it would make his powerful statement less of a dream and more of a reality.
