I think that a lot depends upon the child. My DD has never been very "tactile" in a large-motor sense, and has clearly always thought about things symbolically-- starting from as early as she could talk, she wanted to discuss abstract concepts, etc. Some of this was innate, and some of it was produced by a combination of factors that made it so that we had little choice but to alter her normal developmental impulses (to touch and pick things up, for example). She also had (has?) major sensory OE's such that slippery/slimey or rough textures are anathema.
So manipulatives simply didn't make much sense to her as models/proxies. She never really "got" sorting toys, either, for whatever that is worth, though she has excellent spatial/relational awareness anyway. We did do some large-motor stuff-- that's what I used the Peggy Kaye books for, developing games like letter lily-pads (made with painter's tape on our hardwood floors, which drove my poor DH insane, btw), number hopscotch with sidewalk chalk, that kind of thing.
DD had more or less learned phonemes and the mechanics of decoding as a method before we switched to CM methods from Montessori. Maybe that means that she learned to read at 4 and not closer to five like I'm recalling. Hm. We definitely didn't use flashcards with her-- she was not flash-card tolerant. LOL. She did like computer games like Reader Rabbit, and because of her aversion to manipulatives, we used them. IN no small part, this was because otherwise she talked with others NONSTOP. So it was kind of self-defense and a way to get 'quiet time' with her. There was virtually NO 'formal' instruction the way most people think about it. She just sort of... learned. I'm not sure how else to explain it. CM seemed to suit her curiosity and verbal tendencies better than methods that assumed written skills that she didn't have and wasn't ready for... but it allowed higher order thinking at younger ages, if that makes sense.
