I appreciate all of the activity on our company blog over the past few months. This is a spectacular forum for communicating with dedicated reading teachers and concerned citizens on a more informal basis. I've been thinking a lot lately about all of the changing tides that we experience in education on a monthly and yearly basis. It's very difficult to ever "hang your hat" on anything because of constantly changing legislation, research, and techniques. I am very proud to work for a company that has been rock solid in its stance on the best strategies for teaching reading for over 25 years. Flash back just 10 years ago and it was a battle to convince many educators that phonics was an important part of any reading curriculum.
Fortunately the pendulum has swung in the direction of proven teaching techniques for now, making that battle easier for the time being. It should be noted though that even when phonics was a byword in many schools we were advocating its use and publishing the same reading program that we publish today. Reading Horizons and Discover Intensive Phonics have been a "constant" in the sea of change that we call "education reading programs" and techniques for teaching reading. Furthermore I can promise you that we will still be teaching this way even if (and I pray this doesn't ever happen) the pendulum swings back the other way.
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