[Tax-chick]

My #6 son, about whose reading instruction I've written before, has completed Alpha-Phonics and is now diligently using his phonics to read everything that crosses his line of sight. He hasn't entirely stopped reading words backwards, especially when a word begins with a vowel (who knows why), and he still flips letters vertically (b/p, M/W) sometimes. However, he can pick and Easy Reader book off the library shelf and get through it with very limited assistance.

It infuriates me that children aren't taught to read. It's just not that difficult.

[moose07]

You’re both absolutely correct on this.
I was taught to read phonetically before going to School, this was a huge advantage. However even if you could read you where forced to go through all of the books in order from the beginning, in an attempt to de-educate you.
I learned what little punctuation I can utilise from a book about ten years ago. Eleven years of school and no real idea on how to use a comma. (They Won).
They also succeeded in wiping out any latent mathematical ability that was available using similar techniques.

School assistants/ Volunteers are prohibited from teaching the Children Phonetics to this day.
It is ,as you say, a Massive drive to render the population educationally dysfunctional.