That's why you use media queries to set display: none only for non-screen readers.

Of course, screen readers might not respect that, in which your solution would work.

I like this rather new solution, which actually works in older browsers including IE7 if you happen to need to support that. Still uses text-indent, but pushes it right instead of left and sets overflow hidden to hide it.

http://www.zeldman.com/2012/03/01/replacing-the-9999px-hack-...