I have a toddler of similar age and, despite reading to him every day, I&#x27;m not sure I care how early he learns to parse the symbols himself. He gets the alphabet, and can sound out very few words, but I don&#x27;t actively teach it unless he shows interest.<p>I get especially frustrated with English because of all its exceptions and inconsistencies. (E.g., his name starts with &#x27;C&#x27; but is pronounced the same as if it were &#x27;K&#x27;. He knows that his breakfast &#x27;Cereal&#x27; begins with the same letter as his name, but why does it sound like &#x27;S&#x27;?) It feels like a poor system to encourage a child to learn when they could learn other things.<p>My delight in my child&#x27;s learning comes from his ability to use and process interesting communication. I loved seeing him develop an understanding of what it is to &quot;trick&quot; somebody, learning how to synthesise an original story, to attempt sarcasm, how to mash two words together to form a made-up word, or to convey implicit information through pitch and speed of speech.<p>These are the little milestones that I actively try to teach, because each one raises the quality of our communication together.