I am with the camp that says "give your child what he asks for/what you know he likes". My child brought us books for us to read to him, constantly. So we read them. As a little one who had figured out the alphabet, he loved those chunky little block books that come in a box, each has 4 words per letter and a picture. "A" is for apple, "A" is for anteater, etc. DS would read those to us and he loved them. He liked all the Alphabet books too - after he had us read them to him over and over, he then took over and "read" them to us. He also had those Leapfrog magnets that form 3 or 4 letter words. He liked those too. But his real passion was road signs, ha ha. When he was 2, he loved road construction because he would read the signs he knew and learn new ones. When I went to buy him his own first book to read, I found a great one called "i read signs". By the time it arrived, he had already figured out the reading code, but he still liked the book.
As for hothousing, I personally think it's hothousing if a parent sets out to formally teach a toddler something academic before he showed signs of wanting to learn it. Obviously, we are teaching our children things every moment of their lives, but the purely academic stuff I think can wait until they show us they're ready. (But I'm speaking of toddlers now - when they're 4 or 5, I think that's a good time to get learning.)
