My 13-year-old son enjoyed being able to identify words people spelled out for him from about age 2 1/2. When he was 4 and joined a musical theater group he got a lot of attention from other kids when they discovered he could do this. He was surprised when he found out other kids didn't have this skill. The older kids would spell out their hardest spelling words, usually science related words. Since a science encyclopedia was his favorite book at ages 4 and 5 he could get those words easily. When he was about 4 I started spelling out all of the words from some of the newspaper comic strips and we had fun with it. I could spell out the words very quickly without much time for him to sound them out and he would still get them right. At three he was spelling some words but they were usually smaller words than he could decode.
My son's eyes got tired very quickly up until about age 8 and he had vision therapy. He had trouble reading more than a paragraph without resting his eyes so I would just spell out the words for him for a while. I also put my finger underneath words for him so he didn't lose his place.
My son had trouble with handwriting because he had low muscle tone and weak muscles. His hands hurt when he had to do very much writing or coloring but it didn't have anything to do with his intelligence. When he was tested by an educational psychologist at age 7 his spelling ability was tested by having him write the words. The educational psychologist was surprised at how well he did on this test but I knew he could have done even better if they had tested him orally. His comprehension has always been very good also and he always used a much better vocabulary than most kids his age and even some adults.
