My personal experience at Public School was a lot of mixed emotions and with a troubled childhood I found it very difficult to do the basic schooling expected of me in the Public Schooling system. From this when Home Schooling my own children I didn’t want them to experience the struggles I did.

I learned early on that each child is a different soul, a different character, and in that being the case each one learned at a different rate.
Knowing this I decided not to pressure them by any comparisons with other children, especially school children, or each other.

Each child will learn to read and write in his or her own time.
To help them along you can motivate them in a positive way that makes them want to learn.

My son Jimmy was very hesitant to learn to read and write.

He had it made, his older 3 sisters would read him bedtime stories, I would read to him while homeschiooling, so he saw no reason to learn himself.

He was in no rush. While this is clever and intelligent thinking on his behalf he was going to miss out on so much by not learning to read and write himself.

One day I told him about the value of reading books that we want to read that other members of the family may not want to read, such as exciting adventures that his three sisters would find boring or that they were not interested in but he wanted to read. In other words, the only way he could read the adventure stories that he liked was to learn to read himself. He agreed.

I mentioned that he was very imaginative and would one day possibly be a writer himself, and the only way that he could express himself from a distance is to write. I mentioned that he needed to learn to write so that he could write his sisters letters, also to fill out birthday and Christmas cards, to write a love letter when he was older, and the many other good reasons to learn to write.

After this talk that inspired him he became very motivated to read and write and threw himself into the lessons and was well on his way reading and writing.

The worst thing that we can do is to compare children to other children and demand and force them to take part in something that they are not interested in doing.
The best thing that we can to is to inspire them honestly about the advantages of learning what they need to learn for their own benefit and enjoyment.

When the child wants to learn then the teaching is far easier and effective.