They went for a philosophy that says reading comes naturally, like walking. The whole language approach is very confusing and frustrating for children. I did a lot of research on this inane approach years ago when my kids briefly entered public school.
Long story short, I wound up home-schooling, building a nice little tutoring business, writing my own reading/spelling program, working with our local boards to get SOME phonetic teaching, and now I’m helping home-school the grandkids.
I have come to the conclusion that it’s intentional - an illiterate population is much easier to control.
I think you’re reading to much into it. (no pun intended).
I don’t think sight reading is applicable until somebody really learns how to read and what they are reading.
If you’re reading slightly above your reading level or self educating you’re going to ‘sight read’ and it’s going to be effective.
For learning how to read it’s not a good method, for advanced reading and reading some foreign languages sight reading is automatic.
Just my opinion.
Congratulations on making a business out of helping people.