Here is a post from Spelfabet on an alternative order of teaching high-frequency words which best suits a logical phonic progression. This makes sense as children can use the phonics they are already learning and apply them to high-frequency words. Very simple. Why is this important? It is important because teaching children to read words by remembering their shape (by sight) is an inefficient use of memory space and anyway, many children have poor visual memory. Teaching them to break down the words into phonemes not only helps them to read them but to spell them accurately.
Is anyone in the DfE listening?