I consider DS6 self-taught, he learned his letters and sounds from preschool, but he figured out how they formed words all on his own. But, he's a whole word reader, so I'm not sure exactly how he made the leap. Just before he turned 5 he just picked up easy readers and started reading them, then a couple of months later he was reading beginner chapter books.
What he does now, and it fascinates me to watch him, when he comes to a word he doesn't know is he compares how it looks to something like a "database" in his head of words he's heard and he works it until he matches them up. I'll hear him sound the first couple of letters to help him decide what word group to start with, he'll say the first few sounds of a couple different possibilities until finally all the blocks fall into place and he knows the word. He never stumbles over it again after that. If the word is just too strange to match up phonetically, he'll come up with some very interesting pronunciations, lol (segue is segoo). I don't know, maybe all kids do this, but it's still pretty cool to watch and I think it might be a part of how he learned to read.
