I taught myself at about 5. My son taught himself at 3.5. Neither of us is a genius. It just kicked in.

Our nanny was a former reading teacher and she’s been with us since DS was two months. She sort of set him up by reading to him for at least an hour overview the course of the day and doing letter and phonics together. She played rhyming games with him and broke down words. We have several letter sets to play with and She taught him Upper and lowercase letters by playing with them. She would put up rhyming words with the magnetic letters. And FS just got it one day a little before his third birthday. So yes, I suppose that was teaching but no method or workbooks or planned lessons.

Yeap. I did. I was a fluent reader by age 4. There were a lot of books around my house.

I did. I was reading at 3, and my parents didn't do much at all except start me on Sesame Street when that started. They must have read books to me but I don't remember it. I'm just really smart (according to the kinds of tests that test for that kind of thing) and I'm really good at pattern recognition.

So it depends on the child. Don't freak the heck out if your kid isn't reading, and honestly, unless your kid is around five years old or older, don't throw those terrible learning to read type books and courses at them.

Yes, children who are very intelligent can figure out reading on their own. Some children need to be taught.