From what I have seen in education I have learned that there is not a one size fits all approach (which is actually one of the biggest issues that many have with the Common Core.) The approach that is used on Easy Peasy may work wonderfully for some kids. And for others it may totally bomb.
I personally prefer to mix phonics and whole word learning. I have found it to work most frequently as an approach. There are some words you need to learn in order to read that simply cannot be sounded out (you is a great example) with the phonics rules. Also once you have a sight word learned that word can be used to help teach other words with the same phonics rule (ie once you know at you can learn cat, sat, etc). But to learn every word by sight is relying heavily on the visual memory and not necessarily building great foundational skills that all children need to read. And for some children learning sight words is difficult. On the other hand learning every phonic rule in the American English language is tedious. There are so many. Added to it some rules are broken often. As an undergrad we were told not to teach a phonics rule unless it was correct 80% of the time or more in the younger grades. It becomes to tedious to teach a rule only to say "but not when x occurs or y occurs or z occurs, then the rule isn’t the rule. "
Mixing phonics with sight word instruction is my preferred method. And right now it works well with my oldest son. We’ll see what happens with the other two boys.
I do have background in elementary education, with a heavy concentration in reading. And while my preferred mixed approach is based on theory that I learned it is also based on practice of teaching in the classroom as well as working with my own children.