CC, I was so disturbed by that woman's question, I had to write out a response for myself. Thanks for rethinking pedagogy with me. It would be a lot more lonely without you.

The pleasure of reading is the pleasure of reading, no matter what age you come to it. Also, there is no age limit on board books. I have four of them in my kitchen and they still get read from time to time.

The idea that its somehow a loss for a child to skip the board book stage, illustrates that the timeline and curriculum of institutional education is arbitrary. Having been raised in this arbitrary system, we've been taught faith in the system through implication. And so, come to feel that reading a board book at age 5 is pertinent, follows something important, leads to something important: Next we study clocks. Next we study the bean in the cup. Next we study a book with pages. Next is New Math. And on and on and on. But this is nothing more than a well intended poorly written fairytale.

Its easy to understand how backwards the system is when you look at someone like Richard Feynman. As a young child he studied advanced (according to the timeline and curriculum of industrial education) abstract ideas about physics through observation and experimentation. I think he simply got very comfortable wrestling with large unknown questions. Curiosity coupled with imagination and  permission to wonder and question were the basis of his early education, in a completely free form way. All of which was nurtured and supported by his father.  No one told that kid he had to begin with simple ideas and move in a long slow progression of simple ideas, through 13 years, until he was ready to tackle complexity much later as an adult.

Homeschooling parents witness complex learning, out of line, frequently. Not everyone is going to be a genius, like Feynman. But most kids are ready for the good stuff early. Life is the good stuff and not dependent on a slow approach.