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I haven’t been on this site forever! but i have a question and pediatric checkup isn’t for a few weeks. i’m just nosey.

my youngest is not yet 5. Soon! But He has taught himself how to read and can count to 100.

He asks our Alexa to count in French. He asks me what different words are in different languages (I can speak one foreign language so so)

WTF! Is he super smart? I asked the pediatrician last year (because he could read at 4, too) if it was Autism and hyperlexia and he said he’s obviously not autistic so maybe just into reading and that’s going to be a strong suit? I homeschooled my older kids and this is nuts.

what do you do with a kid like that? he’s too young for kindergarten… so next year he will go and be reading? while the others are learning site words? and how to count? i. remember going over these things with my oldest in even first grade public school and he’s ahead of where she was there.

[This message edited by Gottagetthrough at 2:20 PM, Tuesday, October 22nd]

what do you do with a kid like that? he’s too young for kindergarten… so next year he will go and be reading?

Wife has advanced early childhood degrees. The school she works at has kids that reach into the genius level. You make sure they have social skills, are well adjusted, can follow directions, and be confident. In the early childhood space that's more important than anything else. You also want to be sure you don't burn out their passion to learn while also ensure they doesn't miss out on being a child.

But is this also on the spectrum of normal? my oldest was in public for the first years and couldn’t read at 8 years old. She was absolutely normal, she just needed something different (homeschool). She was reading by December after she was out of school.

I am curious how the he’ll he can learn so fast! We used to go to the grocery store when he was 3 and he’d read the signs peanut butter crackers bread milk … and people would stare at us and look around like they were on candid camera 🤣

now it’s not as strange since he’s a year and a half older, but he said oh look this candy has kiwi strawberry and pineapple mango! and the woman behind us nearly dropped her drawers lol! 😂

added: he’s otherwise normal as anything, he plays with kids and his siblings and his dog and begs for candy. He has never liked to watch cartoons though. He always wanted to watch the NASA station as a toddler.

My oldest was reading before KG. He also has ADHD. I also am pretty sure if he was a kid now he'd be dx as in the spectrum.
But yeah our school had a smart kids program. They attended that one full day per week which was helpful to learn at a higher faster level. It was also helpful because they had to make up what they missed in normal class .

He was reading chapter books by 1st grade so when they had time to do work and he finished he would read. He would get hyperfocused on a topic and read all the books available on it then move to the next thing from dinosaurs to cars to baseball to on and on.

I was an advanced kid. I couldn't read as early as your kid but I spent most of my childhood with my nose buried in the family set of encyclopedias, and did read early. And often. When I was in grade 1, I got sent to the grade 3 class to take reading with them, in grade 2 I got sent to the grade 4 class to read with them, in grade 3 I got sent to the grade 5 class to take reading with them. My public school was only kindergarten to grade 5 so when I hit grade 4, they didn't really know what to do with me. I was chosen to spend part of the school day helping to set up our school's brand new library. I got to alphabetize the card catalogue and books, organize the books by subject, things like that.

Part-way through grade 4, they skipped me into grade 5.

Once I got into senior public school, I checked out 2 books a day from the school library. We're not talking literary greats by any means, but I read 2 Nancy Drews or Hardy Boys or animal books (The Black Stallion series, Marguerite Henry, Anne of Green Gable books, etc) almost every day. I wasn't a big winner but I was always in the top of the spelling bees and math contests. I was chosen to attend a program that took advanced kids out of school to go participate in musical plays (I was Rachel Lynde in Anne of Green Gables) that we put on at other schools and in senior homes.

I'm not on a spectrum. Just a kid that ate up books and loved to learn.

The only real problem I had from skipping a grade was that I had a really hard time understanding fractions for a long time. You know how in the early grades, you kind of build on knowledge every year? We used to cover similar things every year but learn more about them in subsequent grades. I think we were just starting on fractions when I skipped so I missed my base level knowledge. When it came time to build on that knowledge the next year, I had no foundation. I struggled with them for quite a while.

I did well in high school for the most part. I have kind of a photographic memory so "studying" for a test to me was just reading over my notes once and heading into a test. I was on the honour roll. And then I started hanging out with an older crowd ... School just wasn't "cool". I started to really dislike math when I had an exceptionally ineffective teacher, and I started skipping math to hang out with my boyfriend and go for an early lunch. I barely passed math while having the highest mark in my business classes and language classes (French and German). I got chosen to go on a foreign exchange for a couple of weeks while in high school. We used to have exams in January and then at the end of the year. If you were doing very well at the end of the year, you could be exempt from the June exams. Well, I skipped out of math so much that they "punished" me by taking away my exam exemptions meaning I had to write them all. I say "punish" because studying was no big deal to me, and writing the exams raised by marks anyway so it really wasn't a punishment for me.

Due to family circumstances, I started working early. I got my first job at 13 so I was doing that, too. Waitressing in a snack bar.

I think my whole point to this post is that you do have to try to encourage a kid to be a kid. I don't want to complain about my school years. I enjoyed them a lot until maybe grade 11 or so, and then I did start to burn out and just want to hang out. I was still working a couple of nights a week and on the weekends, and I babysat a bit too. It made me really not want to go to college. I didn't go, and that was probably a mistake. I do regret that somewhat. And I do feel that I kind of burned too brightly early and just kind of dimmed as I got older. It got a point where I didn't feel like being "the smart one" all of the time, and I mean that from the perspective of my friends and family, if that makes any sense. I just wanted to hang out and be like everyone else. I guess I'm saying to treat the advanced child like the others while still trying to feed their want of knowledge. It's a balance.

My eldest grandson is like that. Very precocious, spoke clearly and in full sentences early, read early, and he does deep dives on subjects that interest him. He could tell you anything you wanted to know about reptiles at age 5, including scientific names and place of origin. Then he got into Greek mythology.

I think fostering his interests and taking him to the library often are good places to start.

But just kind of be cool about it, not really overly hype it up?

my mom is super smart (skipped 2 grades and was valedictorian, etc etc) and said it was lonely. she had friends as an adult though. 😊.

i contacted he school today and they said since he reads and can count to 100 and by 10s already he’s past what they teach in preschool but too young to go to kindergarten to too bad lol 🤷‍♀️. gee thanks! 🤣

maybe montessori! or even just staying w me and doing art and reading etc thanks!

I'm a Montessori kid, and I wholeheartedly support that idea. I think your kiddo would thrive in that environment because he's already intrinsically motivated to learn!

I, too, think it's best to treat him as a kid who is intrinsically motivated to learn stuff, but he's still a kid. That is, his motivation to read is only one characteristic of a complex individual.

Our son has been teaching in public schools for a few years. What he says about current pedagogical theory bothers me. Our GS's experience was troubling, though he's pretty happy at one of the top high schools in the city. His K and 1st grade teacher gave him extra work to keep him from bothering other kids. After that, he had to do the normal class stuff, even though is IEP told them to send him to the 5th grade math class when he was in 3rd grade!

IOW, if you can afford Montessori, it might be a good idea. I say 'might be' because our son was in pre-K/day care at a Montessori school long ago, and it was awful - the teachers did anything that got the kids dirty (like painting), they told him to hit back when a kid hit him, they shook kids (including our son) as a disciplinary measure....

Our son - very smart, 2 years of calculus in HS, lots of AP credit, PBK in college - did not read early. He loved Danny and the Dinosaur, though, and we thought he might be reading when he was 4. He wasn't - he just loved the book so much that he memorized it as we read it to him, and he even memorized when to turn the pages. I still find that very moving when I remember it.

If you can't find or afford a good Montessori program, be prepared to fight for your kid to have his school keep giving him challenges that he can meet and master. That's hard work, but it's worthwhile. Son and XDIL were at each other's throats when GS was stymied at school, and GS has suffered because they fought each other instead of the school.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:55 PM, Wednesday, October 23rd]

I was an early learner. I was speaking in sentences at 15 months and reading chapter books at 3. My biggest piece of advice is to teach your child how to persist when something doesn't come easily. I never learned to study because it just wasn't necessary. I didn't learn to focus because I could keep two completely separate trains of thought running at the same time. (God, I wish I could still do that!) When I reached trigonometry and couldn't immediately grasp the concepts, I had no idea how to handle it. I didn't know that I had to get those concepts straight in my head because they were the building blocks of the assignments that followed. I should have gone to office hours to get extra help, but I stuck my head in the sand, and my grades crashed and burned. Failure was a totally foreign concept for me.

I also agree that it's important for early achievers to get support with socialization skills, but it's tricky because it can be hard for them to relate to others their age due to that skills gap. By the time I was 10, I gravitated to older kids and adults because I could have more interesting conversations with them. This made me vulnerable to abuse because of the inherent power gap. I was groomed by one of these adults, though fortunately, I think the same precociousness that attracted him was the reason he eventually backed off. I suspect it was too hard for him to predict what I might tell my parents or teachers.

I hope this doesn't come across too negative -- it's terrific that your kid is so bright! But these are the things I wish my parents had known.

IOW, if you can afford Montessori, it might be a good idea. I say 'might be' because our son was in pre-K/day care at a Montessori school long ago, and it was awful - the teachers did anything that got the kids dirty (like painting), they told him to hit back when a kid hit him, they shook kids (including our son) as a disciplinary measure....

Oh no! The hitting and shaking sounds terrible. I'm sorry your son didn't have a good experience. My guess is that school had a Montessori-based curriculum but didn't have certified Montessori teachers, which makes all the difference.

it's tricky because it can be hard for them to relate to others their age due to that skills gap

And obviously they get teased a lot. I mean, these days it seems like every kid gets teased/bullied for the slightest thing. I can just speak to the fact that I got teased a lot for being the "brainiac". Oh, she knows it all ... Miss Perfect ... sigh. Sometimes kids like that also get misunderstood by adults who think the kids are being "snotty" when they're just trying to share things that they've learned. One of my teachers told my mom I was snotty. I dunno, maybe I was but I do remember my feelings being pretty hurt that my teacher saw it that way.

It can be totally normal. I say this with respect, but don't get ahead of yourself. One of my children was reading Harry Potter at 5 years old. On her own. We were like, "We've got a genius on our hands!" Our pediatrician who was very wise and had seen it all said, "calm down. The chances are by fifth grade, many of her peers will have caught up. Enjoy her, don't tell her she's special and just let her have fun in Kindergarten."

Others have said a version of this here. I'm not trying to rain on your parade. I was very guilty of "College at 11!" Lol. It's wonderful that your child is reading and counting to 100 at a young age. But let it all play out without accelerating anything.

Sometimes kids like that also get misunderstood by adults who think the kids are being "snotty" when they're just trying to share things that they've learned.

I too, had very early learners. My oldest started kindergarten a year early after the recommendation (testing and personal assessment) of the public school district (her preschool teachers suggested we research her starting early). Actually, she just missed the cut-off date by a few weeks, she'd had two years of preschool, so it wasn't that big of deal. Both of them were reading in preschool and I was told that likely as they aged, their peers would catch up. A few did, but when high school was said and done, they'd both graduated #10 and #20 in their class of 500+, with lots of honors and AP classes under their belts. It helped that they found extracurriculars where they could spend time with like-minded students. They were almost exclusively self-motivated to learn, so it took the pressure off of me and H to stay on top of them.

I absolutely agree with the suggestion that they be allowed to experience some frustration. Even college came easy for them, so when it came time to enter the work force where having smarts isn't all that's needed, they had a period of adjustment.

True story - my youngest became involved in performing at a young age and was part of an auditioned-based children's choir for several years that travelled internationally every other summer. This choir required an enormous amount of discipline and passion for the art, and it was a perfect fit for her. But when she got to high school, she also wanted to sing with her classmates, so she was very active there with the music and theater programs, and because of her other group experiences, had a very solid understanding of music theory (without ever having taken a music theory class) and excelled. Her choral director made a slip-up a couple of times in class and D knew he was wrong, and after the second one, decided to argue with him about it. He was not happy about it, and actually took it out on me one day when the choir was at a competition and my D came to the defense of a friend who the director had wrongly accused of misbehaving. He had my D call me (I was at the competition, just not in the same area as my D)and he proceeded to tell me how I needed to deal with her. I told him she was under his supervision and he needed to deal with her appropriately according to school policy. Of course he never did anything to 'punish' her (it was toward the end of her senior year, so not much time to issue any consequences), but to this day, I suspect he had it out for her because she corrected him on some music theory.

All teachers adored my daughters (well, except for the criticism that they talked too much in class), but this one D knew when she knew more than the teacher and couldn't keep her mouth shut. It was a very awkward last couple of months of the year in a program that I'd volunteered hundreds of hours.

I have a super-smart daughter who graduated high school two years ahead of her age-group. She then went on to university where on her second year she had some issues. Turns out that so far she could depend on memory from class and quick-reading of material, but at that level she also had to do focused reading of material, notes and analysis... things that us dumb folk learn as we move along at our normal pace. In other words – her "smartness" helped her get along with sloppy learning-abilities. Learning was so easy she didn’t have to make any effort.
Of course, being so super-smart it only took her one bad semester to realize she had to change, and she adapted better learning methods and a higher work-rate/ethic.
My not-so-smart younger daughter however had a higher work-ethic. She spent hours studying and managed to get good grades. But it took a lot more effort.

Frankly – I would rather have my kids be super-diligent and a good work ethic than be super-smart. Of course, I would be happy if they combined both!

I'm a retired teacher with a Master's in education of the gifted. Early reading is not necessarily a sign of high IQ and late reading not a sign of lower. It's a skill much like riding a bike or talking. If exposed to the right stimuli, most kids learn how.
That said, the very best thing you can do for any child is to follow their interests. If they obsess about bugs, get them books, take them to bug exhibits, seek out bug experts. Don't let on that the kid next to them can't read the chapter book they just finished. Encourage continual curiosity and let them experience the tedious nature of some tasks, teaching them to find some bits of interest even there.
And yes, many kids come into first grade already reading. By third grade, they've all mostly caught up.

The WORST thing that happens to any child is to get convinced that they are bored. They then become lazy. Teach them to be interested in everything.

@Lionne -

Not to thread jack, but nice to see you back on the forum!