That could have been my son, but he was pointing out letters as a baby and associating them with sounds through various toys and starfall. So the decoding thing just came first. I consider him to be self-taught because starfall was something he demanded and taught himself with. I just helped him with the mouse (he was a baby!). Also, he was fully reading before we ever tried the "Learn to Read" starfall section.
Yes, I am sure my dd learned to read with sight words from memorizing but she also associated letters with sounds because she knew all her letters by 18 months old as their sound from Leap Frog letter factory. I think she started reading before she actually called letters their names rather than by their sounds. LOL
True, it doesn't have to be a 4th grade level book for it to be reading. It could just as easily be Dr. Suess or Little Bear or something even simpler but we just seemed to skip that stage around here. dd had all the picture books we owned memorized so even if she were reading them, I didn't give her credit for that. LOL
