a new way to teach reading?

I found myself torn between opinions as I was reading the article "Letting Go of Letter of the Week". I really liked how the strategy they used to teach reading helped to excite children about their ability to read and write. It was touching to read about the moment when the students realized they actually can read and write based on their ability to read McDonald's signs and write scribbles or pictures. However, I can't say that I fully agree with the strategy they used to teach reading and writing. While I see that it was successful for the 2 teachers in the article, I can't picture it being successful if I were to try it in my classroom. It seems somewhat unrealistic. I was a nanny for a 2 year old and as we rode in the car he would yell out McDonald's, Burger King or any other restaurant he recognized. However, he was not yelling out the words on the signs because he was able to actually read them. It's hard to say that children could read the word "billing" in a book just because of having a classmate named "Bill" and seeing "ing" in the word Burger King. I'm sure there are some pros to the strategy they used in the classroom, but I personally don't agree with it and I wouldn't use it in my classroom.
Would you use the same method they used to teach your students? Or would you stick with the traditional learning letters and learning letter sounds? 

What a great way to get students thinking about real life examples of letters. When they see the emblem on a Honda car, they can apply what they've learned about letters to recognize that the logo is the letter "H". Encourage the students to come up with their own examples of things they see in every day life! (Ignore the writing at the bottom about pregnancy.. it's not relevant. I just liked the picture for an activity idea)