I was never taught Phonics in school
Okay As many of you chasites me about I am a terrible speller. I will be the first to admit this. I will say I was never taught Phonics in school. I clearly remember sitting on the floor in front of the teacher who said "Now normally this is where I would teach you Phonics but we have a new way of learning now and we will be sight words".
I have a general grasp of the rules and can figure out the word in front of me BUT I do get confused at times.
Did anyone else learn sight words or know what I'm talking about?
= new reply since forum marked as read
Where they tried to teach me to sight read..
Needless to say it didn't take. 
and he was having a terrible time learning to read. Once I taught him to sound out the words and handed him one of my old Hardy boys books, he was off and running. Second one I taught phonics to as soon as he started school, and he was reading Harry Potter by the summer before 4th grade. The youngest I started on phonics at preschool age, but with his ADD he still struggled. He's actually improved more in the last few years than when he was in school, I think it's because there's no longer any pressure to learn, he does it cause he wants to know, now.
Teaching sight words for (English especially) is stupid. You have to learn HOW to read, not rote memorization.
Don't knock yourself for being a sad speller. I was an early voracious reader.. I even tested at college level in 6th grade, but I still have to write down certain words to see if they are spelled right. I use my backspace key A LOT. Thier, which or wich or witch, niehbor? neihbor? neighbor!
but they are often better than nothing at all. I'm a very accurate writer and, with literally decades of professional editing experience, extremely confident of the rules. There are times when the grammar check tries to "fix" an error that I know, without a single doubt, is correct usage. That drives me nuts, too! Once in a while, I will make a typing mistake that the grammar checker fails to catch. When I do my own proofing again, I find it. Nothing's perfect - not even me! 
You're very right that those who read more are generally better writers, but as there are fewer good examples to follow, even that advantage only goes so far. How I wish people would use a thesaurus now and again! "Very" is not the only superlative available in our language. Sheesh!
I honestly don't remember how I learned to read for the first time. My grandfather used to tell me that I was able to read the comics to him when I was about thirty months old. I can't remember that far back, but I do know that I was reading children's books long before I went to school, and to this day, I read at least three books per week. Grandpa used to buy me a book every time I finished one, and by the time I was about twelve, I had a collection of nearly a thousand. I had to switch to using ebooks about ten years ago (seriously early tech adopter - Rocket ebook) because I couldn't fit any more paper books in the house! And for some reason, I just can't part with books that I've finished.
I have one new client, a young man about twenty-eight years old, who is a wonderfully creative thinker and engaging storyteller. His punctuation, especially for dialogue, however, is abysmal. We've found him a publisher based on his story's quality, but it'll take weeks to clean up the manuscript. He was a "whole language" student, too. When I introduced him to the real rules of grammar, particularly those for phrases and clauses, he was flabbergasted at how little he'd been taught in those areas. I feel confident that his next book will be a vast improvement over the first, at least in its technical aspects. 
Because I learned to read when I was 3!
Though I still have trouble with -able vs. -ible. 
I used to love diagramming sentences when I was in school. I'd do it when I was reading, just for fun. My deep infatuation with words began at an early age and hasn't yet waned. 
Diagramming sentences was one of my favorite things to do in Reading/ English classes.
... I LOVE your (you're) post! 
U wound't of blieved how yer note risemballs sum of teh riting i hafta fix. 
The problem for many years was that phonics was almost totally abandoned in favor of the whole language approach, and while I'm sure that replacement had its merits (don't ask me where), it was also thoroughly inadequate to the bigger task. There are few languages that are quite as fluid and have so many exceptions to the rules as English, and that's a constant complicating factor. Consider, then, the fairly substantial usage differences in American English and British English, not just in vocabulary but also in comma, semicolon, and quotation mark use. I edit for both, and I can tell you that it's a bear trying to keep all the differences straight (particularly if I've only had one pot of coffee)!
I completely agree that reading, reading, and then a lot more reading is a critical exercise in building literacy muscle. I also think that children should be required to write much more, and have that writing actually critiqued at the standard level rather than the individual (relative) scale that seems to be so popular today.
Ah, the Chicago Manual of Style. 
Would that five percent of people for whom I've edited had even known it existed.
Some of the editing that I do is strictly SPaG, but a growing amount is for fiction work, so I'm getting into plot and characterization more. Talk about sloppiness! Tense switching, run-ons, continuity issues... the list of potential (actual) errors is astounding!
