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[quote=Anonymous]I read to both kids every night but they still had very divergent paths to reading.

My first child was obsessed with letters and numbers from an early age.  We introduced him to the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD at 18 months.  He learned the letter sounds first before he knew the name of letters.  He used to play with an app called Pocket Phonics and could select the correct letters based upon their sound before he was 2.  I didn't formally teach him anything but he could read fluently at 3.  He went to a Montessori preschool for 2 years which taught letters and sounds.  In Pre-K, he started at a local private, which focuses on teaching phonics.  He is in first grade and an excellent reader but still working on his spelling. He has great decoding skills in part because he has an incredible visual memory, but is now working to get his comprehension skills to catch up to decoding.

His younger sister was also introduced to Leap Frog at a young age.  She learned the letter sounds but had no interest in playing with letters.  She learned the alphabet in pre-school.  She also recently started at the same private school for Pre-K.  She is 4 and can only read her name and the word cat.  She will get heavy phonics instruction this year.  I don't expect her to be able to read until she is 6.

Everyone always asked how I taught my first kid to read.  I didn't teach him to read.  For reasons unknown, his brain just picked it.  His sister had the same general path of exposure, and cannot read.  Reading is partially instruction and partially developmental.  Some kids walk at 9 months and others don't walk until 18 months.  Some kids read at 3 and others don't read until almost 8.

If it makes you feel better, my SIL was in the worst reading group in her class in 1st grade.  By 3rd grade, she was in the top group.  She also went on to an Ivy League school for college.   The age she started reading had no impact on later academic success.

The takeaways:
- Some kids can be taught or pick up reading skills early.  Others cannot until their brain is ready. 
- Most kids do need phonics instruction to learn to read (when their brain is ready).
- Academic schools and play-based schools are not mutually exclusive.  My kids private school teaches a lot of academics at an early age through "play" - games, songs, hands on activities, physical movement, scavenger hunts, stations, puzzle games, etc. It is a mix of structured activities and individual choice. Both kids LOVE school and think they play all day.  Academics are fine as long as they are developmentally appropriate.  [/quote]

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