My kids are both strong readers, but took different paths. The first taught herself to read before she started school. On day one the teacher tested her and sh

My kids are both strong readers, but took different paths. The first taught herself to read before she started school. On day one the teacher tested her and she could read the first 200 words they were to be taught. She had had support and encouragement from us, and we read to her every night, but we never did any structured lessons with her The second couldn't read when she started school, and was taught using phonics. It took a couple of months for it to click, but then she was getting letter sounds, understanding digraphs, joining sounds together, and then reading words. When she got to that point she just took off. I feel like our first would have succeeded in the American system just fine. But the second really benefitted from laying that groundwork that let her understand the fundamentals. If she'd learned using the three cues system I feel like her self-directed progress would have been much slower.