Comment by Izkata

> In Russia and Ukraine pretty much every child can read by the time they enter the first grade.

In the US too, reading is generally handled in Kindergarten, the year before first grade. If your parents didn't teach you before that, like mine did.

> Meanwhile, when I was learning English there basically was one spelling rule: memorize.

There are rules though, that we're ad-hoc taught as kids, or just absorb through exposure. Just because there's a lot of exceptions doesn't mean they don't exist. Here's an attempt at listing them out: https://www.zompist.com/spell.html