When I first read Ruf's levels, I actually didn't notice an emphasis on early reading but that may because I was looking for things my daughter WASN'T doing in order to convince myself she wasn't gifted. My DD5 taught herself to read by 2.5 so that aspect of development was clearly in one of RUF's high LOG, but then there were other things that she wasn't doing at the same level so I noticed those more, and didn't just make the assumption that she was gifted or any particular level based on reading ability alone.
My three year old is just at the sounding out of very simple words level at almost three and a half, more than a year "behind" my firstborn who really skipped sounding out words and just seemed to know them all by some strange magic, but I am not feverishly trying to hothouse her to "catch up" since I know the first was just wired for language / reading in ways my second one isn't though she is very bright and verbal. I think of my second as very normal, but I really don't know what is normal for these ages.
I have a mother who keeps asking me to tutor her five year old in reading skills based on seeing how my girls read. How's that for hothousing?
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