[hitgeek]

I heard of this story years ago, and was very dismayed. (There is no date on this website is this something new?)

however the last 2 years I've experienced kids being taught to read in US public school kindergarten and the curriculum was nothing like was described in this series. They were taught phonics and memorized common non-phonetic words the same way I was taught 30 years ago.

[pitaj]

It's likely you got lucky or your state / school district already changed the curriculum.

The podcast goes into how over the past few years, there has been a lot of activism to shift schools from cueing back to phonics. At various levels of government, including state laws.