Why could we have been teaching kids to read the wrong way for decades?

There is a war of words in the education world over the best way to teach kids to read.

[SlicedZucchini]

i'll tell you how I learned, when I was in second grade I read at the fourth grade level, and when I was in third grade I read at the 11th grade level, I spent most of my time at the library, and I learned from the Oxford dictionary, I did carry a tiny Miriam-Webster dictionary an thesaurus but seldom used that dictionary, the Oxford was much superior and 500 times larger, I didn't speak until I was about three almost 4 years old, and I grew up watching mostly Bugs Bunny of all things but I did move a lot so I never had many friends growing up as a young child, so I spent most of my time a little isolated at the library because no kids went to the library or the book fairs, and interestingly enough they would have junior high and senior high level books there, and from what I remember when they would teach us how to use the card catalogs none of my classmates were interested in learning... I also remember as an adolescent the little personal pizzas from Pizza Hut promotional reading program

One last thing, the Oxford dictionary really helped along with wonderful teachers for language arts, reading and writing; sorry for the super long post, and all the comma splicing, but I've been completely blind for seven years now

[ChantalA]

I learned to read when I was 4. This was the early 1990s and whole language was the approach as my mother was a pre-K teacher. I was reading on or above grade level the entire time I was in school. My parents constantly encouraged me to read whatever I wanted as a child and teenager. Teaching kids to read just by looking at each letter is not teaching them how to read. When you have the aid of context clues, etymology and whole words, you should be able to easily break apart new words you don't know. Or at least, that's how I was taught.