* Hooked on Phonics began in 1987 with a determined father and a boy whose reading struggles left him constantly begging to stay home from school. The father, John, was determined to help his son overcome his reading troubles, so he started by using the old-fashioned method of sounding out words. John wrote catchy jingles to accompany reading drills and developed an in-home learning program using phonics. To his delight, it worked! And the rest was history.