Oh for Pete’s sake, I have never heard of anyone being taught sight reading that wasn’t followed up with phonics.
Now, what you might be seeing are students with mild dyslexia, who simply cannot learn phonics without great difficulty.
Most of the best students and fastest readers are sight readers.
(1) You learn to read by the Phonics method. McGuffey, for instance.
(2)After you master that and read a few hundred real books, you are then a sight reader.
The Ed Gurus merely tried to get the children to sight reading faster by eliminating phonics. You know what? In highly literate households where kids pick up reading on their own when they are 3 or 4, it sometimes works.
It does not work all that well for your ordinary happy-go-lucky 6-year old male first grader. I tutor maths at the Community College and these youngsters, while perfectly "nice" people are astoundingly illiterate and have absolutely none of the Western Canon under control at age 20 or so. Nada. Zip. Nuthin'. Can you spell, "Obama Voter?" Forever.
PS: If I see one more tattoo, or piercing, just send the cops to pick me up before I hurt someone. WTF? Over.
Everything in your post is proved false by specific, documented studies referenced in the book that I mentioned in my previous post . . . for Pete’s sake.