It seems there is no working around learning to write and read properly. We've drifted away from this idea, which might lead to a "soft" dark age.
I think most people don’t bother to use the reading and writing skills they did learn, so I doubt this is as big a deal as people think.
More than half of the USA believes the Earth is less than 10k years old, and this has been true for decades. Being able to read isn’t enough, people have to actually do the reading.
And memorizing. Rote learning makes the brain.