We both love homeschooling but I disagree with your post. If the people who can’t read manuals had read ENOUGH, for pleasure and interest, they would have been more fluent. You can easily look up words now. Especially if you read books on a kindle. If you spent from ages 13-23 (the education years! Put in that work!) looking up unfamiliar words you find, after 23 you might only do it once or twice a year. Reading a lot is essential to being able to read. Period.
Of course, you are right. Everyone should read for pleasure and interest. That would of course make one more fluent.
However, to get to that point, one must read.
If you have access to all the phonics rules you can read anything.
As you read more, the need for the basic phonics diminishes.
That's why I did them in "cheat sheet" form.
As you begin to remember the most commonly used phonics rules, there is no need to remember the more obscure ones unless you have a good memory, and want to.
That's why the "cheat sheet". When you do encounter that odd or new word, you can figure it out.
Just guessing at words, as the "educators" of today want you to do can lead to disaster in the wrong circumstances.
IMHO, a good dictionary to have is a 1934 or earlier Webster's Collegiate. They can be had for a dollar or so at flea markets, etc.
Age 3 to 9 are the most important for learning reading.
From 7 or so and up to 27 or so, I read around 100 to 200 books a year, including, around 12 years old, the Holy Bible and the Holy Quran.
If you read the type of books I do, you always have a dictionary handy.
With the history and genealogy research I'm into now, I have a collection of dictionaries going back to the 1700s and books explaining the use and meaning of words back to the 800s.