Thecaty, glad your child is receiving appropriate reading help.
As to what more there is about Steiner education, yes, I am getting the impression there is more to it than just the bells and whistles -- my question is really what else is there, what is the added dimension; is it a philosophical one or is there an intellectual component I am unaware of?
Northern, I now live in a house with central heating . I love having warm feet, plenty of hot water, etc. My childhood was fun in many ways, but I have to say I liked other kids' houses with their wall to wall carpeting, TVs, white sparkly fake Christmas trees... Parenthood is truly a thankless job . My childhood friends had parents who I'm sure loved them and did their best for them too, bumbling along as best they could as we all do now, I suppose.
About children learning to read I don't think any of mine learned to read in school because of formal instruction there. Two had learned before they even started school. The other three 'got it' while they were in their kindergarten year at various points (in the US where they started school you go to kdg at age 5). One DD summed up the process of learning to read thus "the letters disappear!" She was so excited to finally see the words. Made me think the process is actually one rooted in biology or neurology and not something where you can follow steps and expect an automatic or predictable response to instructions. Also, a child's brain is better able to approach the abstract symbols and decode than adult brains are if they've missed the childhood window of opportunity in this area (it's difficult for adults to learn to read even if they don't have dyslexia) and maybe this too is rooted in biology/neurology -- again this has me thinking that childhood is the time to learn to read and get your brain working on abstract symbols.
Reading opens up the world of other people's thoughts and experiences for a child, it can satisfy a child's curiosity about earth and space, all the sciences, the past -- you name it, you can read about it. And you can become a critical reader; children naturally develop in their reading tastes, going from simple stories to more complex plots. A teacher can further challenge and guide a child through the use of comprehension and analytical strategies.
Why learn to read? Well, intellectually, human brains are built to understand the abstract as well as the concrete. Reading and maths (and music and art) provide an opportunity to use our capacity to work with abstractions. Ideally, children would be able to develop physical strength and co-ordination at the same rate as their intellectual progress. I know this is not biologically sound thinking here, but I see the brain as a muscle -- you use it or you lose it, basically.
I don't know where you're going with the allusion to imitation, but my observation is that children learn to speak this way -- they can even learn two or more languages in infancy and early childhood purely by listening and imitation. Research shows that newborns have already embarked on the path to apprehending speech. We are wired to learn from a very early age. Babies in deprive circumstances (Romanian orphanages, for example) who are not spoken to or interacted with show negative results in their overall intellectual development, not just in terms of learning speech.