I started screaming about this subject 35 years ago which my oldest went to Kindergarten and I witnessed this “child centered learning” for the first time. Outrageous.
I immediately pulled her out of the school, started home-schooling, wrote a proper reading/spelling program (based on phonetics), opened a small tutoring business and have taught hundred of children to read (some in high school!).
This was intentionally done - whole language was the greatest program to harm children and dumb down the masses. Brought to America compliments of John Dewey and the progressives.
I learned to read in the early 1950s, and so did all my classmates. We never even heard about a ‘system,’ we just learned to ‘sound it out.’ One or two who were ‘slow’ had trouble and probably never got good at it, but then we’re talking 2 out of 32 kids.