I was a VERY early reader, and I had no problem with phonics. Fortunately, my mom was literally an “old-school” schoolteacher and used phonics to teach me reading at home. She was forced to use “whole-word” in her classroom and hated it.
One properly gets to “whole-word” THROUGH phonics. Trying to jump directly to “whole-word” just does not work, as proven by at least 75 years of total failure.
Many of my kids learned to read before the age of one. This article doesn’t address young readers. I mean young. Dr. Titzer is an academic supporting what I say.