Ok, that makes some sense. It was the reform aspect of 'Spelling reform' that i missed. Having taught ESL to students where grammar and many awkward facets of English, i.e. read being pronounced 'reed' or 'red' dependent on the condition of non-past or past tense, i can see the utility of some disambiguation help. Most of my students came from the Japanese mother tongue, where spelling is both less and more involved, and indeed 'literacy' is a much more complicated concept.

The reading at "4th grade level" is at yet another level of difficulty in French if i understand correctly. That may be where some of English' complexity has an origin.

I routinely explain to students and the curious that English is less a "core language" than it is the gradual accretion of words from many languages; primarily French and Germanic during the centuries of iterative conquest of the British Isles and the intermingling of the conquerors and the conquered in the market place, with the inclusions of Latin, Greek, Norse, Celts/Gaelic and various other lexicons through various means. It makes for a rather simplistic explanation of a complicated issue, but serves to resolve the "why are none of the language rules actually followed, and sometimes there are more numerous exceptions than adherents" family of questions.

In any case, if this is what you have an intense passion to build, keep at it!