I think my 2.5 year old is a good example of "self-taught" ... I have never once in my life read him a book. From when he was a baby, he had zero interest in anyone reading to him. Even now, he won't pay any attention to it. When he was about 18 months, he really got into watching Leapfrog videos and Super Why show, suddenly started recognizing all lower and upper case letters and phonic sounds and couple months later started reading words. With zero help from me, other than occasionally telling him what letter he had when he came to me with a plastic letter block in hand. He loves Vtech V.Reader books and Leappad ebooks and has now started reading parts of sentences in his regular paper books. Again without any help from or anyone else. So I do believe he is / will be self-taught.
