This is why I'm grateful for my native language, Haitian Creole. Our alphabet has signs - formed with Latin characters - and each is mapped 1 to 1 to sounds. You write words like they sound, and you pronounce them like it is written. Most of the usual mistakes made are because they tried to use the French orthography - many schools teach French before Creole. Foreign words can be either written with the original orthography or the best approximation in creole.

I am also similarly thankful for the indian languages I know and grew up learning.

There is no difference at all between what you call a letter and how it sounds when it is used in a word. Reading is simply sounding out each letter as you go from left-to-right.

I vividly remember learning the short and long vowel sounds in elementary school. With the marks over the vowels explained and used in lessons.

Things like băss and bāss. Obviously those marks can be confusing if they're substituted in for words where the spelled vowels are different than the pronounced vowels (like yo̅o̅ for "ewe"). I guess those were the advanced words we'd learn after the basics were taught. But first, the "Evil E" :)