This really rubs me the wrong way. You're not that special. You're not an educational genius who has cracked the code for teaching kids how to read at years above their grade level. You put some effort into it and you have a kid with a great deal of natural ability. This is their achievement, not yours. The title should be "My 3-year-old learned to read like a 9-year-old."
Too many smart parents have smart kids, avoid completely neglecting them, and then talk about how great they are at teaching kids and how stupid The System is for failing to do this. Good on you for being there, and no doubt your effort helped out, but don't kid yourself. Your main contribution here is your DNA.
I've seen people with a great deal of natural ability. I'm certainly one of them. But most never got as good at maths as me, because my father began teaching me before an age I can remember. I also never got as good as some others, with arguably less natural ability, because my father didn't know what an amazing maths education looks like either—he grew up in the middle-of-nowhere, went off to college, and realized, "I really should have learned all this stuff earlier," and did his best to do so for me, but he was learning about competition maths at the same time as me. This is not to say that competition maths make an "amazing maths education", just that competition maths coaches exist, and they know exactly how to best teach students maths, while I learned mostly through trial and error.
Indeed. Plenty of people have strong opinions on parenting until they get a child that is less easy. The worst though are the parents that never have their own experience of such children.
I think you are confusing contribution with effort. While it might not take a huge effort from a parent to do this, it is still a ginormous contribution, most likely life-changing in itself, even if they don't continue with this accelerated education.
Too many smart parents have smart kids, avoid completely neglecting them, and then talk about how great they are at teaching kids and how stupid The System is for failing to do this. Good on you for being there, and no doubt your effort helped out, but don't kid yourself. Your main contribution here is your DNA.