Upon reflection, maybe the line between "healthy" and "unhealthy" has more to do with parental expectations of performance (or behavior) than it does with anything to do with level, time, timing, or how child-led things are.

Of course, I think that what we did was healthy. This may be some selection bias on my part. I'm sure that we made other mistakes to make up for that, though. LOL.

We had no particular expectation of proficiency or performance beyond the informal 'reading' sessions with the specific phonics books each afternoon. DD was able to decide what use she wanted to make of it all, and that was fine with us. It would probably have been healthier to have done it when she was just three and first expressed serious interest in learning to really read. We instead relied upon a knee-jerk reaction that only pushy parents "taught" their children to read that young, that there must be something harmful about it, and that we weren't going to be among "those" parents...

We went through the same thing with toilet training. She was just ready so early and we were still so stuck on ND expectations that we didn't believe it, I guess, and refused to cooperate or provide tools during the window of greatest intrinsic motivation on her part.

Hindsight is 20/20, however.

A few years back, we taught our toddler dd to read. She was book-obsessed from an early age. She was also teeny and not growing fast, so dh tried to amuse her in the high chair so she'd stay longer. It started with the words on the cereal box. He then started adding words with a Sharpie, and it quickly progressed to the distinction between though, thought and through. Her language skills (reading and speaking together) took off just around her 2nd birthday, and never stopped. She reads many books, and she reads them very, very quickly - her speed surpassed dh and I at about age 4yo.

She is now 12 yo and her reading has let up just a bit as her interests have broadened - although she may still seemingly effortlessly fit a couple of 300 page books into an otherwise busy day if she is in the mood.

Did we hothouse? Okay, if you want to call it that, fine. But given her lifelong love of reading, I have no regrets.

This is such a funny story! One of my boys (not the PG one) was like this as well. At 6 months, he would grab my finger as I was reading to him and put it on a picture so I would label it for him. He'd say "at," for "what's that?" Then he would "steer" my finger somewhere else on the page so I could talk about something else.