[fwip]

It depends a lot on the parents.

If you'll permit me a generalization, well-off parents generally have more time, energy and money to spend on their children's development. For example, if you're a stay-at-home parent, you have more time to think about how to get your kid reading. Maybe you're teaching them directly, maybe you're buying books you think they'll like, or teaching by example by reading books in your spare time.

If both parents are working double-shifts to make rent, you might just be happy that your kid is being quiet watching TV, so you can get some sleep.

[7thaccount]

My wife and I are both engineers and work full time. I'm tired at night too, but it's worth going through the effort early rather than later when they're struggling.

I started with the sounds that each letter in the alphabet makes when she first turned four I would guess. It wasn't exactly easy, but we'd try to go through the exercise before she went to sleep each night. At first it would take over a half hour to get through it. After a few months of on and off she had it down pretty well to where sounding out letters was possible. Each step is a challenge that they have to get through and it's also a challenge on the patience of you the parent.