Interesting thread. I think the experience we have had around here is that reading is given much less weight than math. Part of this is probably that it is more typical to have kids reading somewhat above grade level than it is to have them doing math somewhat above grade level. The greater numbers of kids who are "advanced" in reading vs. "advanced" in math creates the appearance of less rarity since many people seem unable to distinguish advanced from gifted, nevermind distinguish between levels of giftedness. "Advanced is advanced, is advanced...right?!"
I also think people find it easier to quantify a student's math ability than to quantify their reading ability. There are clearer benchmarks in mathematics.
What I find ironic, however, is that reading is often dismissed as "just decoding" even in cases where it is much more--whereas math often gets a wow from observers even in those cases when it actually *is* "just computation".
