Hmm well I’m old and we used phonetics to read as I recall (back in the early 60s)
We’re about the same age then. My school years started in the mid ‘60s. I never heard it called phonetics. The two words are somewhat related, so I can see how they could be confused, but they are not synonyms for each other. I checked the definitions first because I didn’t recall phonetics ever being used to describe my elementary school reading courses.
I recall the color-coded SRA Reading Laboratory in third grade, a self-paced program. Absolute bliss, could read as much as I wanted to and didn’t have to wait for the other students.