Phonics, definitely
English phonics are harder than many other languages (someone mentioned German, now that's a fairly easy phonics language).
But if you can puzzle out a word using phonics, you may not be reading as quickly as you can, but you can at least make it out. Whole word, if you don't know the word you're sunk.
I've met people who *must* have been taught whole world reading. It's almost painful to listen to them try to figure out what a word is, or just flat-out misread it. It can be painful to listen to a phonics speaker puzzle out a word, but they tend to get it right rather than read it wrong. And, as with most things, more practice improves your skill.
At some point maybe phonics learners switch to a more whole-wordish method (I learned with phonics but as best I can describe it now I take in paragraphs at a glance). I don't know I've ever seen a study about how fast readers really take information in.
