With the methods of “teaching” reading in the USA, it is amazing anyone can read.
... and I was off to a lifetime of reading and ENJOYING to read.
REALLY educated in the Bawst'n public school system 1950's
33 years ago, when my first child was entering Kindergarten, I saw the new methods of child-centered learning and the whole-language approach to NOT teaching reading, spelling and writing.
I let her go to school for about a week, as I went shopping for supplies, did some quick research, and set up a little school room at home.
I wound up home-schooling way back then, before there were all kinds of programs and supplies. I wrote my own program for reading and spelling, using phonetic rules, which letter/s to sounds association, rapid left-to-right decoding. No guessing, no skipping words....reading.
I schooled both of my kids for about 6 years, started a small tutoring busines, had many, many children of all ages over the years, and it paid to put my own kids through Christian schooling. Just last June, I finished up teaching my 3rd grandchild and now all of them are in Christian school as well.
I said way back then that this system is designed to dumb down the population and there’s no way it’s not intentional.
Close to 40 years ago (mid 80's) when I went back to college to finish up my degree, I was appalled at the illiteracy, and lack of math and writing skills among college freshmen then.
I can only imagine how much worse it is now, 2 generations later.