This is familiar to me… my wife used to accompany (music) at a Waldorf, and there was a lot of odd scare mongering about the danger of reading “too soon.” (And I say this as a parent of three children that spent 15 years in a wonderful Montessori school, so I’m no stranger to learning approaches that are commonly classified “alternative.”)

I encouraged my kids to read early, in part because it was such an important early skill in my life. (Side note: My best trick for avoiding topics I don’t want to dwell on is to overexplain — there’s no greater dissuader of children than the boredom of a parental lecture!)