This comes up periodically ... I learned whole word as did my children.. ..guess what ?? We all read on a college level..
Coincidentally, just got email from Don Potter about 1967 article where all of these issues are explained by noting that the more verbal kids figure out for themselves the phonetic content no matter what the teacher claims to be doing.
Meanwhile, the less verbal kids often can’t escape from the early sight-word instructions, despite later exposure to phonetic information.
A long, somewhat technical article but here it is:
http://donpotter.net/pdf_files/errors_children_make_laurit.pdf