Ever since I learned that huge swathes of people younger than me in the US weren’t taught phonics when learning to read and instead were told to look at the letters and guess from context what the word is, it has made so many internet arguments make a lot more sense. A lot of kids will pick phonics up on their own to an extent, but the ones that don’t are just fucked.

It’s appalling because it’s basically how being functionally illiterate works, but for some reason now it’s the goal. And then they complain kids can’t engage with complex reading and ideas.