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Notes -
English is my second language. But when I went through elementary school there was a big push to teach kids English. So there was a kind of parallel thing going on where kids who weren't even alphabetically literate in their first language were doing the ABC's in English.
I'm pretty sure you could teach an English speaker how to read English by just slightly modifying the way you learned to read Dutch and you wouldn't have many problems. Learning to read might be very important but it's ultimately not hard. Literally, kids can do it. It just takes a little time.
Something similar goes on in Ireland where Irish class material will be so much more advanced than foreign language classes despite the fact that most people don't have it as a first or second language. Spanish class will have you learning verb conjugations while in Irish class you'll be studying poetry and reading plays. It's common to hear complaints from people saying they retained more French than Irish after leaving school.
As an American, I learned a few interesting English grammar rules (most memorably, proper use of the subjunctive) from my AP foreign language class because high-school English instruction is almost entirely literature and writing.
This sounds somewhat similar to what you are saying about Irish, with the caveat that English is nigh-inescapable to Americans, even those who speak other languages at home.
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