Done properly, phonics shouldn’t be about memorizing rules per se so much as practicing them deliberately, until they are internalized.

For some kids, phonics mostly comes naturally. That sounds like your daughter, and myself for example as well. Spelling and pronunciation came easily. I was always the kid who had to flip back to find the page the class was on when it was time turn to read.

But our experiences aside, the fact is that if your daughter’s class was doing 3-cueing instead of phonics, many of her classmates simply wouldn’t learn how to read.