Kid's brains are so crazy. My daughter was doing kinda ok starting to read for a while, she had most of the basic sounds and was starting to get a few sight words, but progress was relatively slow, but fine for her age. Then shortly before she turned six, it was like a switch was flipped, and suddenly she could just read. She can read better than a lot of 8 or 9 year olds I've seen. It's not beginning to read, it's basically just reading, and she loves it. She reads herself to sleep every night. 3 syllable word she's never read before, no problem, just sounds it out and keeps going. I'm hoping it's this easy with our other two.
Once they can read, and enjoy reading, they can teach themselves anything else they want to learn about.