If your kids can read at 3, then good. But the power-tool argument allows for flexibility.
I think I was a little slow, or at best normal in picking up reading as a kid. But for whatever reason, by about the age of 8 I was reading well ahead of the rest. So I never read The Cat in the Hat, but I read the The Hobbit long before most kids.
And I'm glad, because that second level is where the real power-tool lies. There's little point reading non-fiction at Cat in the Hat level. But there's plenty of facts available that are simpler to read than The Hobbit.
That isn't to say I didn't learn other stuff: my favorite childhood book was about science. But it had lots of pictures, and when fist got it, my parents read an explained it to me.
I think I was a little slow, or at best normal in picking up reading as a kid. But for whatever reason, by about the age of 8 I was reading well ahead of the rest. So I never read The Cat in the Hat, but I read the The Hobbit long before most kids.
And I'm glad, because that second level is where the real power-tool lies. There's little point reading non-fiction at Cat in the Hat level. But there's plenty of facts available that are simpler to read than The Hobbit.
That isn't to say I didn't learn other stuff: my favorite childhood book was about science. But it had lots of pictures, and when fist got it, my parents read an explained it to me.