Sight words are meant to be identified instantly by sight. Of course I do not mean to devalue the importance of phonics by any means. However, all children learn differently and it just may be that your child learns best with this style of instruction. If you attempted to use the phonics rule for silent-e to decode it you would end up with a rhyme for cave. In fact, there is research which suggests that many of the phonics rules are useful only a certain percentage of the time.
Word learning can be fun.
Start by having younger children write the words in marker or colored pencil. After printing out the word cards you may want to play a game of concentration together. Print two pages each of the selected words. Your child will select 2 cards. The game continues with each player taking a turn.