Chinese is a picture language, English is not. Who ever heard of teaching English in this way? It’s lunacy.
I know for a fact that “sight reading” has been taught in public schools in the US for over 40 years.
It’s part of a conscious effort to dumb down the populace.
The last Presidential election proved that it works.
It’s how I learned and I started reading at 4. By the time I was in third grade I was reading 5 books in a weekend. Never learned phonics. Big problems with arithmetic, though.