The Los Angeles Times contained an editorial recently supporting the Science of Reading approach that has proved so successful in restoring reading proficiency scores to schools where this curriculum has been adopted. The editors are correct in seeing this as a step that should be more widespread.
I would like to offer a second suggestion that will build on this more widespread restoration of phonics instruction to schools. It involves the additional employment of computers in the teaching of basic phonics to four- and five-year-olds. There are now multiple versions of such programs that provide the kind of one-on-one tutoring that makes phonics learning easier for many children, as well as being enjoyable.
The Utah state bboard of education has published results of their research on the effectiveness of four such programs in Utah school populations. All of them were shown to be effective in helping kindergarten-age children acquire skills in the code that connects printed symbols to English speech sounds, which is the heart of phonics learning.