I have been a long-time advocate for teaching phonics to beginning readers using Charlotte Lockhart?s Discovering Intensive Phonics for Yourself which has now been converted to a more modern version, Discovery, utilizing the same principles and strategies to help non-readers ?break the code? and struggling readers to fine tune their decoding skills. I think Mrs. Lockhart would be pleased to see how far her chalkboard technique has come. Backbone Communications has trained my staff for several years now in the basic mechanics of the Intensive Phonics program and the use of the new software. We have been nothing but pleased and have seen our students? reading scores improve and soar. Thank you, Backbone.

Backbone provides a turn-key virtual education program that boosts students' achievement,serves the unique needs of students and families, and offers a new model for effective public education in the 21st century.

Backbone offered us a huge opportunity that met many of our needs including curriculum, instruction, budgeting, and staffing. For that, we are thankful. In the past, the success rate was 60%-70%. Now it's about 93%!

Reading Horizons helps my ESL students with pronunciation, reading, and spelling. The program gives the students a roadmap to make sense of the language. English pronunciation and spelling is often extremely confusing to ESL students, but Reading Horizons gives them the tools to see the patterns and to master the words on their own. I have been amazed at the improvement in spelling and reading fluency this year. The reading library is a great complement to the phonics instruction. It gives the students a chance to see the newly decoded words ?in action.? Many of my students also see the connection between what they are learning and what their children are learning in class.

?From when we started in early February 2009 until graduation day on May 29, we administered 80 classes, and had a completion rate of about 85 percent,? Barker concludes. ?That?s pretty impressive to us. In addition, Backbone support was very helpful. We called them up, and they found a solution. My sense is that they?ll do whatever it takes.?

Measured against a control group who followed a more traditional curriculum, GAP [provided by Backbone] outperformed the control group in mathematics by 2-to-1 in average percentage gained per student. In science, GAP students did better by an?8-to-1 ratio.

I'm grateful to have received such knowledgeable and thorough training at our school site. Backbone is intimately involved with our day to day implementation and usage, and have been readily available when assistance is needed. Both products and customer service have been outstanding.

I use phonics when I am helping my students to read longer words. ?I break the word into syllables and prove the word. That makes it easier for me to help my kids. Thank you Backbone Communications. Here are some quotes from a few of my students. ?I thought they could probably say it better than I could:

• "When I'm not sure how to pronounce a word, I think about phonics."
• "When I feel frustrated with some words when I'm reading, I decode them. ?Then I can understand."

The training and support have helped us meet and exceed our goals to help students succeed, and for that we are very grateful.

I am continually impressed by the knowledge and availability of the support staff.

Backbone has offered our school exceptional training and support. Unfortunately, over the past year we have had a high turnover and needed to start from scratch with new staff and training. Backbone is always available via email or phone for all of our questions no matter how large or small. The curriculum is allowing our adult students to be successful in their goals.

Students are not frustrated with lower-level work. Most know they have a deficiency and are happy to master the gap that held them back. This program is teaching for understanding, not just to get the work done.

The software program from Backbone will be a valuable tool here at Fountain Hills School District for our Special Education students who may be homebound for some reason or another. It provides the most comprehensive lessons that I have ever seen from an online educational portal. Our students will be able to navigate this tremendous website with ease and learn the common core (Arizona Career and College Readiness) standards that are such an important building block to students to be successful in their post-secondary goals.  

Our students have found great success partnering with Backbone!? From recovering credits to accelerating coursework, Backbone provides an opportunity for our students to journey with confidence towards graduation.? In fact, last year, we had a 96% graduation rate! However, staff and students alike would not be as successful as we are without the amazing support staff! ?They are prompt, efficient and extremely knowledgeable. Thank you!

Our school has been in business with Backbone and using A+ since 2006, and Backbone has provided continuous improvement in all they have to offer. We are so pleased with the introduction of innovative programs to help us best serve our kids. In a juvenile detention setting, Backbone allows us to offer our students just about any class they need at any academic level, which is what we need with such a transient student population. The bonus is nearly every district in Yavapai County has partnered with Backbone, making for a seamless transition between schools. The customer service from Backbone is unparalleled. If we have an issue, we just make a phone call and speak to an actual person and the problem has always been remedied immediately. Thank you Backbone for helping us help our students!

We chose to work with Backbone because we wanted our program to be the best.

I have been teaching Alternative Education the last 3 years here at Hug High School, in Washoe County School District in northern Nevada. ?The thing that most impresses me about Backbone Communications is their unwavering commitment in training educators to help in the success of their students. ?Through the onsite training to the 1-800 phone call for immediate assistance if need be, they are highly trained professionals eager to assist so we can ensure student success in credit recovery!

Backbone Communications has been more than a huge help! The programs are consistent and extremely helpful. We have a top notch program and they helped our staff out a ton! The employees are some of the most polite and helpful support system I have ever worked with! Because I coach football, time is crucial and when I need help, they are prompt and always get back to us very quickly. They deserve two thumbs up in my book!

We formulated a plan that included using the Reading Horizons materials, contracting an amazingly gifted instructor, and recruiting 15 eager adult learners. A class of 12 students met five days a week, three hours per day for, 70+ hours of intense direct and computer-based instruction. Due to the remarkable Reading Horizons' curriculum and the dedication of all involved, students made astronomical grade equivalency changes in a short period of time. The aforementioned combination transformed nonreaders in to readers and provided students with answers to the ?why? behind particular phonetic and grammatical rules.

In addition to helping with credit recovery, Lyon On-Line and Backbone provide an excellent alternative for advanced students, homebound (medical) students, students with personal issues that prevent regular school attendance, and students who have been expelled, and something that can help us meet many challenges.

We didn't originally intend to use A+LS for special education. But we tried it and the results were unexpectedly good. And we wanted to provide one program that offered both online and access for onsite labs. We also knew that we needed to tailor the overall course content, meet Common Core Standards, and that the system needed to meet each student?s preparedness level and learning speed. After much research Backbone Communications was the best fit. As of December 2013, we have over 3500 students accessing the program from all 14 High Schools, with great success. Their training & support has been crucial to build our HSPE, ACT, Accuplacer Prep, Mastery & CBE Tests. Thank you Backbone Communications!