Just stop it. I learned to read whole words when I was four. No one used phonics when I was growing up; everyone learned to read.
I’m in my forties. Everyone was taught the alphabet at a very early age as a sort of rhyming song, then progressing to understanding the sounds each letter can make, then very basic readers. See Spot run. Run Spot, run. Then gradually increasing complexity of vocabulary, with spelling and vocabulary tests along the way. This continued through to middle school, with decreasing emphasis upon “reading” as a discrete subject, for all but those students having difficulty with it.
That’s phonics.