When my kids entered the system 32 years ago, it was the first I witnessed and then researched the whole language system, as part of the child centered learning. I immediately thought it was intentional. I believe it came out of New Zealand and if ever something would produce a bunch of ill-behaved illiterates, this system would do it.
I home-schooled my two kids (as well as a few others) for a number of years and wound up creating my own reading/spelling/writing program, tutoring many children, and it paid for my kids to attend a quality Christian school. I pushed for years to get phonetic teaching back into the system, to no avail. The teachers were following this child-centered nonsense and whole language like it was a religion.
I could read before I went to kindergarten.
My mother and father taught me how to read using phonics.