An episode of Top Gear touched on that (reading based on shape). They had on the designer of British road signs who changed lettering from all-caps to upper and lowercase, against convention. The reason was that the brain can more quickly match the overall shape of the word after is was seen so the roadsigns could be read more quickly.
bUT THE VALIDITY OF THAT AS A "METHOD" RESTS ON THE PHONIC COMPREHENSION FIRST, i WOULD THINK
damned caps lock ... and I type with my head down) .... (and too lazy to go back and correct it)
MY fear is .... they're teaching a sight method before the kids actually learn to read
We have a board meeting coming up in a week or so ... this will be ANOTHER fun accusation I lay on them.
OH yeah ... the neighbor girl is in my school district