Even deciding to read to her is structured, if you made a conscious decision to do it every day as part of an overall plan to help her learn.
When she was a baby, I read the books I was reading aloud to her because I wanted to read and she'd fuss if she couldn't hear my voice. When she was old enough to ask to be read to I only read to her when she asked. I do it because she asks, not because I want her to learn. And it's not (and never has been) an everyday thing in our house.
The question is not whether children can learn to speak or read without (what I guess we should preface with "highly") structured teaching. The question is whether such teaching actually helps or not. Do you have some sort of evidence that your children would be negatively impacted if you had taught them a little more, instead of surrounding them with knowledge and leaving them to their own devices? Or do I misundsertand what you do for them?
Do you have some sort of evidence that your children have benefited from your instruction? All anyone really has is theory and anecdote, and our theories and anecdotes are obviously different.
I've met plenty of smart people with sub-par language skills as adults. Some probably post on this forum regularly.
Ouch. Am I to understand that you believe that if my mother, for example, had actively tried to teach me to speak as an infant (and I can assure you that she did not) that I would speak better as an adult?
