I was also reading at age 4. I attribute my ability to 2 things.
1) My mother sat with me and read comic books (which I still love) pointing to the words and sounding them out (I’m convinced she did this out of her need and not an attempt to show me, in either case I love her for instilling that early ability in me) and
2) because my dad would come home and sit in his recliner and read the paper and pulp westerns after supper while the tv played in the background - I wanted to be just like him so i was determined to learn how to read as quickly as I could.
My teachers had issues with my reading before I was in school - they were convinced that I would end up with less ability because I didn’t follow their methods - or so I’ve been told.
My girls are avid readers now as well - in two languages - I’m convinced it is instilling the love of reading that drives the capability - not the method. My youngest struggled a year or so more than my oldest. Then one day I noticed she was on her 3rd book in a week and she had a sparkle in her eyes - I asked if she liked the book and said she was reading more than before... She gushed about how it was like seeing pictures in her mind and went on and on about the author and the story without any prompting for nearly 10 minutes. After that I knew she wouldn’t have any issues with school (let alone reading)- and she hasn’t (nothing but straight A’s last few years).
Now my wife would appreciate it if I cut down my library a bit (upwards of 20K comics and well over 15k books (paper and hardback)) - it does tend to sprawl around the house - but ... well I think I’ll just hold on to my books.
“My girls are avid readers now as well - in two languages - I’m convinced it is instilling the love of reading that drives the capability - not the method”
You are correct.
I started with the phonetics, but once my mind “clicked” - I couldn’t stop. I loved it and devoured books.
The phonetic approach gets left behind quickly - IMHO
I'm single and no-one complains about the books, but I've been cutting down the paper books to art books, out of print technical stuff, my 1800s/early 1900s books, and a few dog-eared favorites... I expect that when I get done, I'll easily have less than 3000 paper books on hand.
E-books, though... I have those, lotz of those. Stored several ways, and I have a spare e-book reader in a Faraday bag from TechProtect, just in case we get some bad EMP from the sun or something.
In the last 5 years or so, I've read probably 95% of the books in electronic format. PDF, e-book, whatever.
/johnny