I have four kids, and three of them learned to read before age 3.The first one would ask me to read books so many times that he would memorize them. He was 2.9 by the time I realized he also memorized the words I read. It did not help him in school at all. When he started kindergarten I mentioned to his teacher he could read, and she said that children memorized books at that age. I insisted, she insisted, I dropped the subject. In late November she "amazedly" told me that my son read at a third grade level. He had been writing and reading the alphabet as assigned for over two months. After been assessed at a third grade level, he continued to do the exact same thing as every one else (since the teacher kept the work the same for all anyway). For my next three, I've decided to home-school. The last one was pretending to read from baby hood, by 2 I decided to try teaching her some phonics, since she begged to study like her siblings. She learned the letter sounds immediately, but then lost interest. A couple of weeks before she turned three, she started asking to learn to read, so I decided to start teaching her two and three letter words, and was getting nowhere. Ds8 told me why don't I just read the books to her and point at the word. I though that it would be too hard, but I asked dd3 if she wanted me to point, and she said yes. Amazingly, after reading a book a couple of times, she could read almost the whole book. I realized that phonics would not work for her at this time, so I continued to point to the words while I read beginner books to her. I bought a ten pack book set, and added one almost every day. She averaged 10-12 new words a day. She has progressed so well using this method, that after 30 of this small books, I stopped pointing, and she could pick up any beginner book, and just ask me some words she didn't know. We have over a hundred beginner books, but now, she decided she doesn't like beginner books. She wants to read more advanced books, so now she will only read those nickelodeon Dora books, I believe they're about a second grade level. She picks them up, and starts reading them, and asks for help when she doesn't know a word.

I'm sorry to get so long-winded, but I just wanted to paint a picture of the situation. The bottom line is that I don't think that helping a two or three year old learn to read is hot-housing, if done in an easy playful manner. If the child is ready to learn to read, he or she will learn quickly, if not, pushing will not get the child reading, specially not that quickly. I've met people that would start trying to teach their child to read at two, and the child would start reading at four.

The only thing I can say about early reading, is that children are usually happier for it, and it helps us parents keep our sanity. If my children did not learn to read early, then I would have had to read and explain everything all day! As soon as they learned to read, my children kept themselves busy for hours! For example, dd3 reads her books by herself for over an hour everyday, during which time I can have some uninterrupted time to focus on teaching her siblings. So, I highly recommend that you try to teach your child to read. It should take no more than 10 minutes a day, longer than that, and the child may get too tired. You'd be surprised how much and how fast a child can learn in ten minutes, provided its done consistently. If that doesn't work, pointing to the words as you read may work, as it did with my dd3. You'll probably be reading anyway, so pointing to the words doesn't take that much extra time.
Good luck, wish you the best!