DS6 never seemed to learn phonics. When he comes across a new word he asks me what it is and then he knows it from that point forward.
This is very much like our DS. He certainly knows the sounds of all the letters, but he seems to hate sounding out new words. I would describe him as a whole word reader (is that an established bit of terminology?). It doesn't seem to matter how long the word is, either: he's perfectly happy with words like variation, accessibility, dinosaur (of course!), and so on; once he's asked me what they mean he recognizes them. But he sees them as whole words instead of as compounds of sound parts.
Interestingly, it does seem to me that his focus has turned towards reading lately, and perhaps a bit away from math. At any rate, he seems most interested in things that have to do with words rather than numbers. This is a pretty big departure from the norm, so it takes some adjustment on our part. You thought some number game was going to be just the way to capture his attention, but really he wants to write poetry. You want to say, "Stand still for a moment, so I can catch my breath!"
Also, as Kriston said (in so many words), with respect to both math and reading the learning curve is not smooth - it goes in fits and starts. Sometimes he'll make huge progress in a very short amount of time, at other times he seems to catch on less quickly. It seems a lot to me like the way he grows - sometimes there are huge spurts, and sometimes he's the same height for a couple of months in a row. Presumably there's something like the same process at work.
