I found this podcast from this 
post:
I subbed today for a 7th and 8th grade teacher. I’m not exaggerating when I say at least 50% of the students were at a 2nd grade reading level. The students were to spend the class time filling out an “all about me” worksheet, what’s your name, favorite color, favorite food etc. I was asked 20 times today “what is this word?”. Movie. Excited. Trait. “How do I spell race car driver?”
I've only listened to one episode so far, but it's really well produced, seems well-researched and very well put together.
From what I gather so far, the ways that the American public school system "teaches" kids how to read is not only completely wrong, but actually saddles them bad habits which fundamentally hinder their reading comprehension.
A huge swath of American adults are functionally illiterate, and I think I'm starting to understand why.
I don't think so. I'm a very fast reader and I still kinda "hear" words in my head when I go at a relaxed pace. It's just that at a certain level of literacy, your brain has the ability to visually recognize words faster than you can mentally enunciate them, and it can also recognize words faster than you can mentally process for comprehension. I realized this when of my relatives started to play a game with me where he would flash me a paragraph on his phone for just a second or two, and then I would somehow be able to recite it back. You can deliberately make yourself read at this speed but it's not very fun, requires focus, and again, is often so fast that you start losing full comprehension of the content.
See the speed reading subsection here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization - in summary: everyone seems to subvocalize to varying extents, unless you deliberately train yourself not to, which you can, but you shouldn't, because it sucks.
One thing I've noticed is that I think I read slower and subvocalise more since I started reading theory. Like obviously when trying to fully understand a text it makes sense to take your time, but it feels like it's involuntary extended itself to other reading as well