My daughter (now a college professor) had a learning disability that meant that she could not “memerize” things in the same way that most kids could.
Things like learning how to tell time or memorize “times tables” were virtually impossible.
Clearly, she overcame this.
However, when they were trying to teach her to read using this “sight word” bull crap, she was quickly falling behind. They called in a “specialist.” This specialist—whom the school department was paying more than six figures a year—taught her: Phonics.
We had a good laugh with the specialist. By the time my daughter was in 6th grade, she was reading at college level. The rest of her classmates were pretty much illiterate.
(Her classmates ALWAYS kicker her ass in math though. When she was able to use computers...she caught up.)
I went to school in Germany and there was one girl in class whose mother always baked a cake for the second or third grade teacher, who I couldn’t stand. Naturally she gave the girl always good grades. In the 6th or 7th grade the girl had to read aloud and she had a hard time. We found out she couldn’t read.