I have got to get better at checking dreamwidth, you have such interesting discussions over here! I literally just had a professional development day all about this shift, since the Ontario Human Right's Commission recently released their Right to Read Inquiry Report that concluded "Ontario’s public education system is failing students with reading disabilities (such as dyslexia) and many others, by not using evidence-based approaches to teach them to read."

Now teachers in Ontario are in this weird spot where depending on what board you teach in, you have some resources that are approved and some that you're being discouraged from using but there's no new resources being bought to replace defunct ones because the government hasn't actually moved to implement any of the OHRC's recommendations. So resources in school libraries/classrooms may not be decodable (because publishers stopped pushing decodable books) but our board has entirely halted purchasing reading resources until this all gets resolved.

Like someone upthread said, it's frustrating that many of the teacher training programs don't spend much/any time on how children learn to read - in my experience, our language courses in teachers college focussed on literacy programming for older students who already know how to read, not on the actual processes of learning to read (e.g. phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension). So new teachers are reliant on their own independent learning, taking AQ courses in reading, and their colleagues to help them develop their reading programs...Most experienced teachers I know who were using phonics didn't stop using them entire, but they were encouraged to include them as part of "balanced literacy".