My problem with programs like this is the opportunity cost. If a child is spending time being drilled on reading at an earlier-than-natural time for that child, then the child is missing out on the "sweet spot" for other learning that s/he is ripe for. For what? So that the child can be Mommy's little trained seal to show off for friends?
I want kids' learning to be on their specific timetable, with an understanding of the range of normal human development (and the understanding that it *is* a range, with outliers who are different from the norm). But I don't want kids' learning to be shoehorned into *any* adult timetable--either one that's faster than is appropriate for that particular child or one that's slower than is appropriate for that particular child.
When this topic comes up, I always think of the advice I read years ago about toilet training. It said that for most parents, if they started training at age 1 and worked daily on it they'd have a child who was trained at around age 3. Or they could wait to start until age 3...and have a child who was trained at around age 3.
Seems applicable here.
Except that I'm not sure your toilet training analogy really works. My DD started before she was a year old...because I couldn't bring myself to ignore her when she started signing "potty" right before she peed. She wasn't nighttime trained until she was about 2 1/2, but I don't think that the time she spent prior to that working on that skill was wasted. (But I do agree that for most kids there is no point in starting early. As I said, I only did it because she initiated it, and not because I had an agenda or expectation.)
