Sorry I'm noticing this late. My son was a very late reader by standards on this board. He had letters and sounds very early and would pick out signs, etc. But had absolutely no interest in reading on his own before kindergarten. We read a lot of longer books with him. We weren't even thinking about phonics or teaching him to read at all.
He started kindergarten not wanting to even try and read and left kindergarten reading at about a 5th grade level. It felt like overnight he went from "I don't know how to read" to silently reading books around the level of Geronimo Stilton (3rd grade?). He always hated early readers. He is reading the Harry Potter series right now in 2nd grade (finishing book 6). He certainly had the reading ability to read them earlier, but never the desire to hold and carry these huge hard covers around and follow such a circuitous story. He used to gravitate to books with non-stop action. Didn't matter what the reading level was. He'll read non-fiction at a much higher level than fiction, because more grown up fiction is generally boring to him.
