> English is not really phonetic anymore, so this approach doesn't quite work well.

For each letter you can find a way it is pronounced most frequently, and then take a subset of English consisting of words that follow those rules completely. (For example, the word "cat" is pronounced as a concatenation of the most frequent way to read "c", the most frequent way to read "a", and the most frequent way to read "t".) You learn to read these words. Later you start adding exceptions, for example you teach how to read "ch", and then you add the new words that follow the new rules. Etc, one rule at a time. (You leave the worst exceptions for later grades.)

>> This seems dehumanizing, this is colonizing, this is the man telling us what to do

If you feel "colonized" by reality, I guess you can rebel, but you shouldn't expect reality to reward you for doing so.