DS is 3. He loves books, has a great imagination (don't they all) and he is very adept at doing quite advanced puzzles etc.

[Bluebutterfly]

He knows his alphabet and can count reasonably well. It never occurred to me that I should be worrying about whether he should be learning to read! Does it make any difference if he learns later? I am not worried in the least that he will eventually learn - he loves stories (actually he loves stories with lots of words and only a few pictures which are far too advanced for learning to read). I always thought that my job was to instill a LOVE of stories and books and that reading was something he would learn at school with the incentive of being able to read his favourite stories by himself? We occasionally look at books and point at words, but he gets bored with that and wants a "proper" story.

Now, I discover that lots of MNers with 3 year olds are teaching reading and phonics to their lo's. If ds loves books so much is there something weird about the fact that he has never asked or shown any interest in learning for himself yet?

Nothing weird about it. When DS1 started reception, some children could read, others (including DS1) knew their alphabet and others didn't know any letters at all.
The teachers prefer to teach them from scratch themselves so there's no need to get them reading before school.
Having said that, DS2 is 3 and he already know a lot of letters. He has an electronic phonics game which is helping with his letter recognition but I don't feel the need to have him reading before he starts reception in September.

Thanks Lyra - I really have not given teaching him much thought - like your ds he recognises the alphabet, but he has never asked to learn to read.

Also he is currently in nursery in a second language and will go to school in French (we are living on the continent now) so I may need to teach him reading in English at some point, but I am worried about when will be best, but don't want to confuse issues by teaching him in English before school has started (whole other kettle of fish there).

Message withdrawn

Developing a love of books is exactly what you should be doing! I'm an early years practitioner and never fail to be shocked at how many children don't know how to handle a book. Talking about the story, discussing the pictures etc are all pre-reading skills and at his age he should be telling his own story from the pictures or joining in with familiar repeted phrases as you read to him. If you want to develop his skills then start following the words with your finger as you read to introduce the left to right, top to bottom motion of reading and help him to understand that print has meaning. The first 'word' he should recognise is his name and you can introduce this naturally by writing it on pictures and paintings he has drawn. If you have taught him the letter sounds (not the letter names) then he is in a really good position to be able to learn to read when you and he are ready as once the letters have all been learned it is only a step away from blending them together to make simple words eg, cat, mum.
Don't worry about what other mums are doing, all children develop at different rates and your son sounds like he is exactly where a child of his age should be in any case!!!!!! You seem to be doing a good job so don't let all those "supermums" make you feel insecure, the chances are if they are hammering the reading and insisting that their children can blend every combination of letters before their forth birthday they will only suceed in putting them off reading for life. Once a child becomes a reluctant reader it is very difficult to turn this around!