Can anyone recommend a program that from personal experience is a good way to learn to read and write Thai? Speaking and understanding would be of secondary importance due to deteriorating hearing. Something reasonably structured would be a big plus.

Rosetta stone language courses by far the best but also the most expensive, get friends who are thai you will soon learn the basics or frequent bars and chat with thai.

Rosetta stone language courses by far the best but also the most expensive, get friends who are thai you will soon learn the basics or frequent bars and chat with thai.

You won't learn anything but a few expressions and words with this.

get the books by Benjawan Poomsan Becker, they are very popular and really work. Just skip anything that uses english letters for thai words.

I used and would recommend David Smyth's "Teach Yourself Thai" which has been updated and re-released as "Complete Thai". He stresses trying to read and write from the very beginning, and had little diagrams showing how to write each character. I don't believe Rosetta Stone explains anything and you just have to figure everything out on your own through repetition. Probably one reason why they don't sell it anymore. ;-)

The time it took me to learn 5-6 words in rosetta, i learned how to read with 90% accuracy with the benjawan books.