It's December, my dudes, and The BFG podcast is back on the air! This week we lead off with a discussion of another podcast, American Public Media's 'Sold A Story,' which has ignited a furious debate over how we teach children to read. Writer Sharyn Vane joins host Neal Pollack to discuss the difference between the old-school phonics method and the new-school, more context-based method of reading instruction, which appears to be the culprit in America's continually declining reading scores. While both Neal and Sharyn learned how to read contextually, as "early readers," this may not apply to everyone. Not every kid lives in a house with, as one of the new-school reading proponents did, with "monogrammed bath towels." A lively debate, a ...