Yes; there were always lots of books in our house - OLD books, since my father married late, and his mother married very young. They also never ‘talked-down’ to us; they always used very literate adult language, and we just picked it up by some kind of ‘osmosis’. (And reading the newspaper every day was a Big Deal. I started with the ‘funny papers’...)
Some of the books in the house were so old, it took me forever to quit writing words like “color” as “colour”. (I still accidentally revert to it, and the spell-demon chastises me.)
I think part of my facility came from really WANTING to read. Desire is a big part of any accomplishment. And I know that the ‘phonics’ technique was used, though I never heard that word until around the 1980s (my younger husband doesn’t recall hearing about ‘phonics’ when he was trained, either...)
-JT
My teachers never used the word "phonics."
They just told us to "sound it out."