Educational fads come and go. My brother is five (school) years younger than I am, which was time enough for our school to move from phonics to shape recognition. (His first-grade year will have been 60 years ago in September.) He survived and reads a lot. It didn't hurt that we grew up in a house with lots of books.

I had New Math somewhere around middle school. Probably the time could have been better used, but it didn't cripple me.