If I were teaching french it would be easy, because if you know how the word is written, I know how to say the word. English, not so much.
This is the problem. Whole word has them memorize words on a page and does not let them draw on the words that they already know by listening. Someone who know only whole word will not be able to write down the sounds that they know.
Someone who knows phonics, will write down what I did. Unless they are taught that berd = bird, they aren’t going to be able to decode it. You have to start with the sounds.
I associate the word bird with women and the 1920’s, though I don’t really know when that word started to be used (presumably, slang, perhaps having to do with dress or manners) to mean women. I know it was also used in the 1960’s.
But like I said, you said bird and my smart-ass mind thought of something totally out of the ordinary. It was the first thing I thought of. And seeing as birds flap their wings, it has a double association, all of which pretty much rushed into my head when you asked me to think of the word bird.
But I get your point. Bird, Berd, Burd. Fair enough. But those 3 spellings presumable sound alike, or not. Bird, Berd, Burd could be pronounced beyered, beerd, and boord among other possible readings.
How does whole work work when you get to more advanced concepts? Pronounce geometry, astrophysics, phylum, constipated. A word like constipated seems to me a perfect phonetic type word. Seems to me it would be very haard (ahem) to learn that word in one bite (ew!)
My initial reaction, as I said upthread, was to think phonetics was the better option. I will mull it over though. I will try to challenge my mind and find new words and see how I do it. I know, I have to deal with chemical names in my line of work, and I think I tend to do it phonetically - often putting the wrong emphasis or putting long vowels where people traditionally use the short word. Avastin, the cancer fighting drug, I always pronounced “Uh VAST Inn”, but others seem to call it “A Vust Inn”.