Kristen, I'm glad to read about your diligent work on discovering how to improve reading instruction. It's enheartening that you found appropriate guidance in the evidence about reading instruction. It's also encouraging that you took the step of testing your methods...such an important and so-often overlooked step.

You may have also studied research about aspects of instructional design that go beyond phonemic awareness, connecting letters and sounds, and the similar factors that you mentioned in this post. In designing early decoding instruction there are also decisions about which letter-sound combinations to use earlier and instruction and which to introduce later, transitioning from single-word decoding to connected text, how to structure practice and review, etc.

You might find "Direct Instruction Reading" (6th ed., by Doug Carnine, Jerry Silbert, Ed Kame'enui, Tim Slocum, & Trisha Travers) really valuable in honing your methods and integrating them with full-on reading instruction. It's a very practical guide to evidence-based reading instruction. (I don't get a kick back or anything for mentioning this.

Happy and successful designing!