Hooked on Phonics
| Parent company | Sandviks |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1987 |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location | Danbury, Connecticut |
| Publication types | Books |
| Official website | www |
Hooked on Phonics is a commercial brand of educational materials, originally designed for reading education through phonetics. First marketed in 1987, it used systematic phonics and scaffolded stories to teach letter–sound correlations (phonics) as part of children's literacy. The program has since expanded to encompass a wide variety of media, including books, computer games, music, videos, and flash cards in addition to books in its materials, as well as to include other subject areas. The target audience for this brand is primarily individuals and home school parents. The product was advertised extensively on television and radio throughout the 1990s.
Hooked on Phonics was developed in the 1980s by a father who wanted to help his son overcome his reading problems. The original Hooked on Phonics Learn to Read product was released by Gateway Educational Products in 1987.
The company built a successful business based upon significant advertising, leading to sales of over $100M per year. The product, along with its catchphrase "Hooked on Phonics worked for me!" (spoken by children in the product's television ads) and its telephone number "1-800-ABCDEFG" (now disconnected), became widely recognized during the mid-1990s.
In 1994 the company was featured on the program Dateline NBC with an official from the FTC attacking the company for "deceptive advertising". The FTC and Gateway reached a settlement later, with Gateway agreeing to advertising ground rules and disclosure of all research data and consumer complaints. Nevertheless, the negative media coverage caused the company's sales to plummet and for the company to file for bankruptcy protection.
The year 2001 saw the introduction of test-taking strategies and study skills as part of the "Hooked on School Success" program and a new partnership with KinderCare Learning Centers to use materials in KinderCare's private child care facilities.
In 2004 the FTC fined the company, then called Gateway Learning Corporation, for retroactively changing their privacy policy without informing customers, and subsequently sharing private information about customers including children with outside marketing firms.
...
Wikipedia