Yes, only ever seen phonics taught in the UK - wasn't aware there were alternative approaches, let alone any controversy on the topic. It might not be clear from the original article, but it isn't just single letters, there are also digraphs (i.e. two letters that make one sound, e.g. bee is read b-ee), split digraphs (i.e. where a digraph is split by a consonant, e.g. a-e for cake), and later on things like the magic e and suffixes with a-y for baby. There's some resources at https://www.gov.uk/education/phonics , and you can look on iPlayer or YouTube for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphablocks .