Chocolatelovinggran, I agree there is no ‘only way’ of teaching reading. Pre synthetic phonics, children were faced with ita and Look and Say and sounding out cuh-a-tuh or cuh-ar-tuh neither of which sounds remotely like cat. They used shapes of words, (draw a shape round book, then see how many other words fit that pattern), contextual cues, picture cues and many others dreamt up not just by the government but by teachers.
The one thing all those ways did not have was consistency and continuation between teachers and methods.
Repeating a failed strategy is not helpful, but being faced with a different strategy just as you might be getting to grips with the first one isn’t helpful either.
I’ve used Reading Recovery and Toe by Toe, both of which proved really helpful for children with dyslexia and were enjoyed by the children along with other strategies learnt from the INSET courses.
All children are different. The best action for me is to apply a general strategy that works for most then find something that works for individuals.
Let’s not forget here, the problem of children from non-reader families. Parents who can read, but don’t see it as a valuable activity as well as those for whom reading is a struggle.
. Apologies.