Phonics based approaches to reading have been a mainstay of private and home school programs for decades. It creates a silly disparity between those who can afford or are willing to sacrifice enough to put there children through them and those who have to use the public school system. Every once in a while the parents will have enough and revolt somehow.
I was home-schooled from 2nd grade onward, so I never really experienced the public system. But one of the small towns where I grew up had one of those revolts while I was in college. My mom because she had been homeschooling for a number of years and knew by experience how to teach a phonics based approach ended up helping a group of parents learn how to teach it to their children. A non-trivial number of families just pulled their kids out of the school and home-schooled them. I remember thinking at the time that the school was oddly hostile to updating their curriculum and approach despite concrete evidence that the phonics method substantially improved the students reading ability in part due to the training my mom gave parents and the tutoring she provided for some the students. You could see dramatic before and after results right there.
Show a parent that there is a simple method to improve their child's reading and they will fight tooth and nail to get them access to that method. Unfortunately not every town or school district will have someone who knows and can share the information.
I was home-schooled from 2nd grade onward, so I never really experienced the public system. But one of the small towns where I grew up had one of those revolts while I was in college. My mom because she had been homeschooling for a number of years and knew by experience how to teach a phonics based approach ended up helping a group of parents learn how to teach it to their children. A non-trivial number of families just pulled their kids out of the school and home-schooled them. I remember thinking at the time that the school was oddly hostile to updating their curriculum and approach despite concrete evidence that the phonics method substantially improved the students reading ability in part due to the training my mom gave parents and the tutoring she provided for some the students. You could see dramatic before and after results right there.
Show a parent that there is a simple method to improve their child's reading and they will fight tooth and nail to get them access to that method. Unfortunately not every town or school district will have someone who knows and can share the information.