If you graduated before they implemented this or aren’t American, the system they started to use to teach kids how to read is called three cuing. They teach kids to identify unknown words by guessing based on clues in pictures with the sentences, what word would ‘make sense’, and whether the answer they came up with looks right based on the first letter.
As you may have noticed, none of that is reading a word. These are strategies that borderline illiterate people will use to try to understand words, and for decades it’s been the method used by many schools across the country.
So that person you’re arguing with online who keeps going off on bizarre rants barely related to anything you said might not be a troll, they might just be functionally illiterate due to having never been taught to read. Yaaay!
I moved around a lot, and when I got to third grade I didn’t know cursive so my teacher decided I should be in Special Ed and sent me out of class to get tested.
After the tests, they put me in this thing called the “extended learning program” which was a little like a play room full of educational games and a bunch of really nerdy kids. It turns out my math and reading skills were high school level and though I had not yet learned cursive I was typing 22 words per minute on “Mavis Beacon”. So the conclusion was to send me to ELP and have the kids there teach me cursive.
Then I moved a hundred miles away in the spring and had to start all over for fourth grade when my teacher decided my bad handwriting meant I was illiterate and she sent me to get tested…
My handwriting is still ass though cursive or otherwise.
I can’t write in cursive either unless adding some fancy squiggles counts. Can’t read it either. And my handwriting is super messy. I’ve had it called doctor handwriting lol.