DS never sat with us when we read to him; he was always moving. He learned to read while moving. DS started by "reading" an exit sign at 23 months. Then he moved on to logos, then he pointed and said "What does that say?" at every sign on the commute to daycare. Then he started correcting me if I read him the wrong sign, "no, not the speed limit sign the one that starts with 'next exit.'" Then, "Why does that sign say 'no admittance. employees only?'" He must have picked up some reading skills figuring out how to operate a computer because he didn't ask me what any of the menus said after we had been through them once. And then he read the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe the summer before Kindergarten. I have no idea how he learned to read. Except as Belle says, he only needed to be told a word once and it was in. It is the same as I teach him to read Spanish.
It is weird how the can read things they haven't been exposed to. I was making DS read me an article for an Asian history class I am taking. I was behind in my reading and paid him to read to me while I was driving. He would come to a Japanese word (but in letters, not kana), pause for a second, change accent and say it perfectly. He doesn't know Japanese; he never saw these words before; the pronunciation rules are different. How in the world did he know how to do that?1? Frankly, it scares me!
