You seem to believe that it is because your parents were reading a lot to you that you were able to read by yourself at the age of 4.

We read books to our daughter at least 1 hour a day since she is maybe 1 year old. Yet she does not know or is even willing to read by herself, as most children of her age, which seems perfectly normal to us. But she already developed a love for books that will certainly be very useful to her for studies and entertainment. This is what we should aim for as parents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlexia is a rare but real thing.

But if parents are super dedicated to the goal of getting their kid to read as early as possible, and spend hours per day on reading drills, it’s probably not impossible for most kids to start independently reading simple books by 2.5 or 3.

I’m not convinced this is a goal particularly worth prioritizing, compared to development of other skills. YMMV.

A lot surely comes down to the personality and preferences of the kid.

I know it is possible for a few "special" kids to read at 2.5 or 3 (I didn't know about the word hyperlexia though, thanks for the link !). My point is that such kids will read very early, whether their parents are super dedicated or not (unless, of course, their parents have no book at all and never read which is unfortunately not so uncommon)

On the other hand I am convinced "normal" kids won't read before 5, whatever you do and how hard you try. This makes it even more unworthy to try to reach such goal imho.

> I am convinced "normal" kids won't read before 5, whatever you do and how hard you try

I am pretty sure a typical kid (say, at least 75% of all kids) could learn to read simple books by 3 if the parents were fanatical about it and spent hours every day prioritizing the kid learning to read per se, instead of focusing on broader goals. But it doesn’t seem to me like this is worth prioritizing so much, compared to all the other skills small kids should be practicing: gross motor control, strength, and stamina; fine motor skills; getting along with other kids; listening comprehension; logical reasoning; visual observation; understanding the behavior of physical objects; understanding living things; understanding their society and built environment; helping out with family chores; learning to take care of themselves; etc.

Most kids end up learning to read at 5–7 years old instead because the parents spend time doing other things with them, the kids spend time on other activities, and often the parents have other things to do and the kids must entertain themselves. This is totally fine.

My son is 3.5 and will probably be at the stage of reading simple books (say Green Eggs & Ham level) by about 4 or 4.5. I’m sure we could have gotten him to that point by 2.5 or 3 if we made it our top priority. But I’d much rather spend 1–2 hours per day reading a wide variety of enjoyable books to him and inculcating a love of books (not to mention practicing his listening comprehension, vocabulary, and general language skills) than spend that time on phonics drills.

There weren’t reading drills - it was just a constant activity. Any time we were out, they’d be pointing at signs and nudging me through sounding them out. I think the first word that I got the hang of reading was “garage” - it fascinated me that both g and a had two totally different sounds in a short word, and I probably saw it dozens of times a day around HK. At home I’d sit under the stairs painstakingly decrypting large print picture books. I’ve since applied the same technique to the Cyrillic, Arabic, and Japanese (Kanji+Kana) alphabets, and while I can speak nothing in any of those scripts well, being able to read them is unbelievably useful - and it was purely reading signs, menus, any simple printed information, and repeating until I was reading and pronouncing, if not understanding, confidently, if not well. To be honest, large print picture books probably would have helped. The other drawback of this approach to language is that one ends up with a somewhat archaic lexicon, and some stunning mispronunciations. I am in my mid 30s and still occasionally realise that I have been saying a common word incorrectly for my entire life - “origin” is the most recent example that springs to mind.

Hyperlexia - the term first crossed my path around eight or so, and struck and strikes me yet me as odd, insofar as it doesn’t define any special characteristic other than early and persistent reading. “Curious” is perhaps a better, if broader, moniker - and I guess if there’s one thing that underpins my parents’ entire pedagogical approach it was the imbuement of wonder into the world - everything was a mystery to be solved. They usually couldn’t give me answers, as they were young and unworldly, but they would answer my questions with a Socratic “what do you think?”, which would usually prompt me into going and reading something that might shed some light, or reasoning out the answer using my extant precepts.

So... while their focus might have been almost myopically on reading, it might not have worked had I been such a willing participant, and exposed to many, many things that made my infantile mind whirl.

Don’t get me wrong, I had crappy parents, like most people - but they got something really right in my early engagement with the printed word, whether advertently or serendipitously. It even meant that when my kid sister came along, while I was seven, that they were off the hook, as I wanted to read to her, and share this incredible world of words with my sibling - and she too was devouring books at an early age, stealing dog-eared Victorian adventure novels from my shelves - and yet her early years were far less experiential than mine, growing up in sheltered British suburbia rather than the neon-lit sweat-drenched riot of crass commercialism and swineherds, both literal and figurative, that was Hong Kong. She likewise was ahead at school, is knowledgeable about the world, has forged a path less trodden - so perhaps the early reading bit remains more important than the direct environment - after all, a good book is as good as a time machine and teleporter, and can take you anywhere.

Sorry, I wasn’t trying to suggest that your parents specifically were prioritizing reading above any other goal, but only (in response to ddrdrck_) that I believe it would be possible for the vast majority of parents and kids to get a kid reading simple books by about age 3 if the parents were willing to do so.

Thanks for the elaboration. I enjoyed reading about your experience.

ddrdrck_: If you are reading to your daughter for >1 hour every day, she’s going to come out way ahead on language skills whether or not she can read by age 4 or not.

> You seem to believe that it is because your parents were reading a lot to you that you were able to read by yourself at the age of 4.

IIRC, there's evidence that (like many things) independent reading is driven by parents modelling the behavior (independent reading), rather than by parents reading to children.