You're talking about 3-cueing, and we're moving away from it. The whole idea was that you could teach reading by just doing it, and people would pick up tricks as they went. It's a horrible idea through and through.

I heard about Sold a Story but haven't listened yet. Would be interesting.

What I can tell you as an educator is that math skills are fairly okay, like they've always been, but reading has taken a huge dive. There are some kids who'll read above grade level but I'm seeing more kids with fluency and no comprehension. They don't know what they're reading despite reading it so well, you'd think they'd seen it before. I'm encountering that more and more, and it's supposed to be rarer than this.

You can also take a glimpse (well, I can) at IEPs for a whole class and notice that ELA/Written Expression/Whatever have insane goals and objectives. A lot of it comes down to kids simply not reading when at home. They hate reading. I think they'd rather get bamboo torture than read, sometimes, and it's very odd.