Phonics

There's been a lot in the UK news about phonics.
It's how kids are taught to read in reception year at school. By all accounts, it's probably better than previous systems. I went to school when "Look and Say" - or rather the 1980's version of said system was in full effect and it let rather a lot of people down. I count myself very lucky that my sister taught me to read and write quite fluently before I ever went near a school (although her methods probably wouldn't be accepted in modern schooling) and that meant that as the teacher went on about something I wasn't much interested, I could sit and read a book. I remember my Mum going to the infant school to complain that I was being sent home with books that had one or two words per page. "But she can read proper books!" she said. The teacher said something about the level I was supposed to be on, but pretty much conceded the point.
From what I've been told, they're not allowed to do that now. All reception year children, be they barely four or almost five, are started from the zero point of assuming they can't tell a letter from a brightly coloured plastic toy and that they probably don't know one end of a pen from the other either. Now, some kids probably don't.
But what about the ones that do?
The latest research is that kids who arrive at the start of this system who can either already read quite well or are well on the way are often damaged by it. Why? Because they have to start at the beginning from scratch regardless. They have to re-learn what is becoming instinctive already and given that half the English language does not follow the rules, causes them nothing but confusion.
Teachers are not allowed to divide the class up into those who can read and those who can't because they all have to take an official phonics test to make sure they know phonics. Not to make sure they can read, but to make sure they've learned the system. That's the mad bit. Apparently a child can do quite badly on the test, especially if they're already a fluent reader as it contains nonsense words to see if they get phonics.
So, my best bet is not to teach Joseph to read.

But here we hit a problem, and not an easy one to bypass.
Joseph is left handed, and very left handed at that.
Why should that be a problem? It might sound irrelevant, but I know it isn't. I am left handed and probably still would be a lot more left handed than I am if I had not grown up in a right handed world. From my point of view, the whole world is the wrong way round. Jars open the wrong way, pens are on the wrong side in banks and I sometimes get tangled up, I am constantly forced to use my weaker side to do things and as a result my poor brain has had to adapt and it isn't always easy. I don't say all this to moan or insist that the world changes for me, but being a leftie does come with a few problems.
Letters and numbers. It took me a long time to be clear over a d and a b. I wanted to write everything backwards, I wanted to write from right to left as that was what was comfortable and natural for me. I was nine or ten when I FINALLY worked out which way round fives, sixes and sevens should be. They just looked better the wrong way round and then I'd get flustered and my primary school teacher decided that it was because I was thick. I wasn't thick, just left handed. Oh how I am glad I started ahead of the curve with reading and writing, I don't think I'd have learned at all if we'd just relied on school alone.
Joseph is highly likely to have all the same problems. He too will quickly see how the world is all back to front and his little brain will have to work harder to make sense of it, so it makes sense to start early and make sure he's not at left to the whims of an education system that always seems to prefer leaving the struggling kids to struggle rather than work out why.
Except, as is now being shown, arriving at reception year at school already able to read IS a disadvantage.
Sometimes home schooling is jolly tempting.
Except that according to all the experty people I will be doing him a disservice by depriving him of regular social contact with his peers.
Help!