I am shocked this comment exists, when the counter-example is literally written into it. English uses the latin alphabet which is a phonetic alphabet. It's why english readers can also 'read' Spanish without understanding any of the words. Anyone who says otherwise should be promptly ignored.
People keep saying this, and I agree english is more complicated, but it is otherwise regular. The vast majority of English words are regular, and for those that are not regular, sounding them out incorrectly in context with the other words quickly disabuses you of any incorrect reading.
My mom was a public school teacher in a poor district, and the main problem with her kids learning to read is that they did not actually know English. This would make it much more difficult to figure out how to read properly, since they'd never be able to correct 'wrong' pronunciations. I believe a lot of focus on reading is mis-placed when the children cannot speak English properly. Better to focus on diction and vocabulary.
English is context-sensitive phonetic, Spanish and other Latin languages are regular phonetic. Just look at "are"; its pronunciation of "a" depends on a following consonant and following vowel. Otherwise the "a" would be pronounced like "add". There are over a dozen context-sensitive rules like that, and thousands of common words that are purely exceptions, e.g. "read" and "learning" having different pronunciations of "ea", and hence are not phonetic. They are whole-word pronunciations learned by rote or immersion.
You're probably right that for pedagogical purposes, English reading can be taught the same way as Spanish because they are both based on phonetic alphabets. I don't disagree that knowing English (and knowing things in general, along with vocabulary) are essential to learning to read.
Big picture, irregular pronunciation in English might encourage educators to use different strategies for learning the outlier words or for reinforcement. It could still be optimal to learn with this additional instruction, even if it's a secondary concern for rudimentary learners.
