I learned to read very early through nothing more than being read to. No flashcards, no phonics, no refrigerator magnets. Of course the books my parents start

I learned to read very early through nothing more than being read to. No flashcards, no phonics, no refrigerator magnets. Of course the books my parents started with had small words and lots of pictures, as appropriate for a beginning reader, but they were not even explicitly trying to get me to read -- they were just trying to stimulate my mind generally. This is just one more anecdote, of course, but I think it's an interesting contrast to Sanger's story. Because of my experience I am a little skeptical of the whole phonics and sounding-out-words thing. While the connection between sound and spelling is certainly not arbitrary, English is not exactly phonetically spelled either. I suspect an excessive emphasis on phonics makes it harder for kids to learn to spell. But that's a quibble. I think it's great that Sanger has done this and would encourage any parents so inclined to do similarly. Edited to add: reading on, I come to this line: Some critics say that, even if very small children of average or low intelligence can memorize words, they’re just memorizing the overall shape of the word—they aren’t sounding out the words or learning phonics, and so they aren’t really reading. By the logic of these critics, Chinese speakers never "really" learn to read! Obviously, I quite disagree. I think recognition of the shape of the word is very much reading, and makes one a better speller too.