Straw man - 3-year olds don't read words that need the sounding out of syllables, or looking things up in a dictionary. Everyone starts by tiny-word recognition... unfortunately, that's where everyone stays now...
It’s not a straw man. Maybe I’m the exception, but I was reading at 3rd or 4th grade level by age 3. In kindergarten the teachers had me reading to the other kids, and by first grade I was reading at highschool level, all thanks to Whole Word ;)