ABSTRACT
During the televised debates for the 2000 presidential election, candidate George W. Bush took a stand on letters and sounds, and made phonics a campaign issue (Transcript of the Second Presidential Debate, ABC News, October 11, 2000):
My friend Phyllis Hunter's here. She had one of the greatest lines of all lines. She said, “Reading is the new civil right.” And she's right. And to make sure our society is as hopeful as it possibly can be, every single child in America must be educated, I mean every child. It starts with making sure every child learns to read; K–2 diagnostic testing so we know whether or not there's a deficiency; curriculum that works, and phonics needs to be an integral part of our reading curriculum; intensive reading laboratories; teacher retraining.
