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The education services company Educate Inc. has acquired the parent company of Hooked on Phonics, the controversial but popular literacy and math program advertised on television.
The purchase ushers the Baltimore-based Educate Inc. into the early-education market and paves a way for the company to reach cost-conscious consumers, analysts say.
Educate, whose divisions include the K-12 tutoring-services giant Sylvan Learning Centers, announced the $13 million acquisition of the Santa Ana, Calif.-based Gateway Learning Corp. on Jan. 13. Included in the deal were the 600 Hooked on Phonics reading centers in child-care facilities nationwide, adding to Sylvan's 1,000 tutoring centers.
"This is a very important step for Educate," R. Christopher Hoehn-Saric, Educate's chief executive officer, said in a Jan. 14 conference call with analysts. "Hooked on Phonics is really an American icon and defines phonics and reading programs for over...