Phonics doesn’t work with some types of brains. My son couldn’t learn to read that way. They call it a “processing disorder,” but it is a very right brain oriented type of issue and has been associated with dislexia.
My son is 30 now, but as a child, his brain filed words as pictures. When reading a sentence, he would see the action unfold. This has to be whole word reading. It is till difficult to learn to read because of all the abstract words that have no associated picture. Phonetics made no sense at all. A key was speed reading where his brain learned not to stop when he came to an abstract word.
He is extremely intelligent. The armed services courted him in high school because he registered so high as a potential code breaker on tests. He is an original thinker who puts unique things together -very inventive and able to solve problems in troubleshooting complex systems.
IMHO, whoever wrote the article is an idiot.
I was like him, saw things in pictures; still do.
So is my youngest daughter.
She excelled at all her schoolwork until she reached algebra. For some reason she was struggling.
It took me a couple of sessions to realize what the problem was. She didn't really understand how to handle fractions. Algebraic manipulations rely on knowing how to combine fractions, find common denominators, and multiply to eliminate denominators.
It was her high intelligence which allowed her to find alternate solutions or guess at answers when handling the simpler pre-algebra problems. Only when she had to apply the general principles did it become apparent that she simply didn't understand.
That your very intelligent son can thrive while processing words as pictures has very little relevance to what should be taught for the average child to read fluently. It should be obvious that what has been happening has been a disaster. My three year old grandson can read better than far too many high school graduates.