Ila, agreed. The best advice we ever got about "what should we read to our children / give them to read? (from an owner of a bookseller), was simple: something that will make them love reading.
This is a fascinating discussion and what comes out of it for me is something to do with readiness for learning.
I think that comes through in Roy's description of how little children learn to read and write. The problem is that here in the UK little children are often 'forced' into reading and writing far too early when they are not ready. The number of times as an early years teacher I had to say to parents ' do you really think that at the age of xx your child is not going to be able to read' - in other words - what's the rush - but they wanted fluent readers by the age of 4 or younger - and as we know many countries do not start formal reading classes until after the age of 7.
So is there a relationship between learning readiness and emergent learning - both for adults and children?