US: There are huge fights on the best way to teach kids to read in the US. Huge fights. There's no general agreement on what the right way is. There are two more popular ways - 1. (and the way I was taught) kids learn the names of the letters. then they learn the sounds that each letter makes. then they learn to "sound out" words. so, they'd first learn "c" "a" "t." then "c makes a 'kuh' sound" and "a makes an 'a' sound" and "t makes a 'tuh'" sound. then they'd see "cat" so "kuh-a-tuh" and then say it faster until they hear it sound like "cat." And then they move to the next word. Over time, they learn words. 2. The other way is to spend a lot of time reading to kids, pointing out which word you are reading while you are reading it so that they can see which word (on paper) corresponds to which word (out loud). This can be done with books or just wherever you are that you see words. After they have some words down, they read back to you, showing that they know what the words mean. Eventually, they figure out how to read. BTW, most American 4-year-olds can't read. Many of them do know most of the alphabet (the names of the letters - but if you ask them, some will get tripped up and miss a letter or two). But most begin learning to read around 5ish and can mostly read a picture book (more pictures than words and very simple, simple words) somewhere between 5 and 6.

Before you teach your child to read in second language it is better for him to be familiar (know how to read) in his own language. How do you know that your child is ready to learn the alphabet? You have to be sure that your child has acquired and can recognize and pronounce all the sounds that exist in the language. If child is ready he or she will learn it really fast. I’m a speech therapist and saw some cases where kids been forced to learn the things that they weren’t ready for what made the situation worse. I can share some more tips if you like, just contact me.

I don't think there is a single correct way. However, as Maria.Tet says, pushing a young child to learn something when they haven't developed the capacity to learn it may cause problem. Reading age-appropriate children's books together, including sometimes pointing at the words as you read them, helps the child to view reading as something enjoyable. As the child grows and gains more capacities to learn, how they participate while reading together will change, and eventually it will become clear that the child is ready to start learning about the individual symbols used to write your language.

For native English speakers, children go through five stages to become good adult readers. 1 - Phonemic awareness The ability make all the sounds of the language, the ability to hear the sounds of the language, the ability to manipulate them as individual units. Often children learn rhyming songs. "The cat in a hat sat on a mat." 2 - Phoneme-grapheme correspondance [popularly called phonics] The ability to match the sound with the corresponding spelling and inversely to predict the sound based on the spelling. Unfortunately, English has a many-to-many correspondance. 3 - Vocabulary Children usually know 5000 words when they start school and learn about 1000 per year. Extensive reading is important. 4 - Story scripts and world knowledge Readers fill in the blanks using world knowledge. "Joe had had a busy day. He went to work an hour early and had not stopped until six. He had even worked through his lunch hour. At supper time, he ate three bowls of rice with vegetables." Why did Joe eat so much? [A reader is expected to infer that Joe had not eaten at lunch time.] 5 - Constructing meaning. Readers can construct a simplified version of the text. They understand the key points and the connections between the key points.

My daughter is 4 years old. She attends nursery and has been able to read the alphabet for 2 years. She can read and write basic words already as well, such as "dog", "cat" "stop", "wow". However, while she is smart, at that age the attention span is short, so it's hard work to get her to read successive words and you can forget sentences. But really she doesn't need to read anyway at her age. She will start school in 2 months time, and she will learn how to read there within a few weeks, so there is no need for me to push her to read before she goes to school. If you have the will to teach, and a LOT of time, and if the child is bright, a 4 year old can learn to read of course. But I don't really see the point. Let them be 4 years old. They will learn how to read soon enough and a head start won't make very much difference. To answer your question though, they start with the alphabet and phonics in schools.