Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion When did your child start to read independently?

Interesting thread!

My daughter (now almost 6) taught herself to read at 26 months (or at least that's when we detected her reading abilities). We had her reading skills formally assessed at age 3.5, and at that stage, she had decoding abilities of a 9 year old and comprehension of a 7 year old.

Her precocious reading was one of the main things that prompted us to have her assessed for ASD at 28 months. Turns out, she was/is not hyperlexic, but she is in fact on the spectrum. All of this has added up to an interesting -- and at times, amusing -- journey. One of my daughter's fixations when she was turning four was a biography on Joseph Stalin. She asked to have a Joseph Stalin-themed birthday party that year...thankfully, we were able to convince her to go with the more age-appropriate dinosaur theme!