Matching words to letters verbally before reading?

I’m curious about this:

Our boy is still exploring his letters daily - he’s in love with his foam letters. However, we haven’t moved past this stage quite yet - not much reading by sight or phonics but for a couple words here and there…

However, he easily says words that begin with the letter he’s talking about.
For example, he’ll say ‘e, eh, elephant’ or ‘p, popcorn’…he can think up more than 1 word for each letter he’s interested in at various times too…so, next time he’s chatting about p, he’ll say ‘pizza’.

For the parents who had more success with phonics, did your LOs do this too before reading?
Is this one sign of a more auditory learner?
Just trying to get a sense for the stage he’s at.

TIA