Learning to read doesn't necessarily help. The more they learn, the more questions they have. And sometimes the reading material creates more confusion.
For example, DD7 is homeschooling at a 3rd grade level. She had a 3rd-grade level lesson about the federal government. It consisted of a three-paragraph reading assignment, with questions afterwards. In order to pack something so complex into three paragraphs, the reading used vocabulary that demanded explanation, but it assumed the reader was already familiar.
DD was outraged, and I ended up giving a lecture (DW punted) to fill in the gaps. And what I thought I could cover in half an hour ended up turning into nearly 1.5 hours, because DD kept having more questions... important ones like, "What if the president owned everything in the country?"
