I never thought of myself as exceptional, I thought of myself as normal. When you think exceptional is normal, then normal looks pretty stupid. It didn't do a lot for building respect for peers.
I still have a very clear memory of my first reading group session in first grade, because the experience was like water torture to the ears. It didn't help that I'd already read this very reading book from cover to cover one morning two years ago, when my older brother had forgotten it on the coffee table. I sat there listening to five kids stammering endlessly over "the" and "and," and I thought, "Are you kidding me?" When I was finally called on, my reading dripped with scorn, and my teacher got this look that said, "Omigod, what am I going to do with this one?"
I was shipped off to a 2nd grade class for reading and spelling every morning, until someone put together a 1st-2nd combo class and I was sent there. And that was the only intervention I received in 7 long years (K-6) of painfully excruciating elementary school. We moved and I changed schools for 2nd grade.
