DD4 is a beginning reader. She was drawn to books from probably 2-3 months old, knew upper/lowercase letters by 18 months, and started sight reading words at 2. But her development isn't progressing at some exponential rate, and obviously we're okay with that. We hadn't done much to teach her, until a few weeks ago when she really started showing interest in reading. So now I have her on BOB books and the "Ready to Read"-level books you mentioned. Like your child, she kinda memorizes; there's on Ready to Read book that she can read straight through, but it's a combo of reading and memorization. You give her another book at the same level and she struggles.
We just had her parent-teacher conference for preK (I LOVE that school and that teacher; they are so supportive), and DD had a good number of words on the "instant" sight list but nowhere near all of them. The teacher said if she worked at it, she'd probably be able to read all the words but the point of the test is instant recognition. She lobbied the district to let her use the district's iRead program with her preKs that can read (DD plus another little boy who seems to be a legit fluent reader), and they denied her, so she's frustrated. I told her not to worry on our account; there's no reason DD needs to do the program in PreK. They start IRead in Kindergarten and it's self-paced, so if she wants to progress then, she can.
I told the teacher that I'm more interested in her being able to be in a project-based/play setting like she is, because at home she's pretty obsessed with workbooks/traditional schoolwork. She needs the variety. I can't describe the look of relief on the teacher's face! I think she's used to pushy parents who want their kids to be accelerated all the time (I understand that the parents of gifted kids here might seem 'pushy' but really aren't and are advocating for their kids who need to be challenged; I'm not talking about y'all).
