Reply #2: I teach ESL and Basic Literacy and I HATE these materials. [View All]

[Rageneau]

For over a year, I've been a volunteer tutor of basic reading skills and English as a Second Language. Our local office is well-supplied with the Voyager Reading Series and uses the Best testing system. I have found both of these woefully inadequate as teaching/assessment tools.

Ironically, my main objection to the Voyager series is that its subject matter is always, insufferably, politically correct, with many exercises focused on such things as battered women or fetal alcohol syndrome. These are important topics, of course, but not for someone who is just learning to read English. For them, "Run, Dick, Run!' still gets better results.

For some time now, I've been conflicted. I've always hated the Voyager series, but I figured (because of the subject matter) that it was being put out by incompetent but well-meaning liberal or at least progressive sources. Now, I feel all better, knowing that the materials that I've hated all along come from the same people I've hated all along.