My 2 younger girls had different approaches to reading. The 5 year old who was reading before 2 understood phonics at 18 months, she was sitting at the kitchen table and just blurted out "Mommy, mommy begins with the letter M mmmmmmmmm. After that she started pointing out words reading street signs I finally put a book in front of her and she read 65 pages her first sitting. At 5 whe was tested at a 5th grade reading level. My other daughter started reading at 3 the same book, she read 35 pages her first sitting, now at 4 she is just starting to understand phonics with has expanded her reading greatly. She has not been tested but I would guess her at a 1st grade level based on the books she can read. So I think phonics lets the child expand their reading abilities, but they might still use whole reading while using phonics for the unfamilar words.
