This led me to ask the question, how common is it for a 5-year-old to read grade-levels ahead?? DD5 just turned 5 in January, and with her rapid acceleration, I could see her reading at a 4th or 5th grade level by the time K starts this fall. The K teacher had been teaching A LONG time and only had one child that was gifted like that (and this is in a district with a lot of highly-educated professionals).
My daughter's K teacher said she usually has at least one reader in a class. She said it's fairly common, and it gets less difficult as they get older because the average difference decreases as more able children who couldn't read at the beginning of school learn to read and progress very rapidly and children who were coached a lot continue at a slower pace. She also said it's common to have kids decoding at a far higher level than they can understand.
