I sent my 5yo son to a play-based preschool.  I chose a loving and nurturing environment over one with academic rigor.  While it was a conscious decision, it was still disconcerting when we were told by his kindergarten teacher that he only knew 27-28 letters (out of 56, including upper/lowercase letters and variants of a/g and others).

True to their tiger mom nature, my sister and brother-in-law introduced us to LetterSchool, an iPad app that teaches kids to write in a unique and fun fashion.