OT:
This is NOT likely to be relevant to your situation--BUT...in my own peer group (parents all highly educated) I am seeing that kids who were slower starters but who I could tell were quite bright are much closer to DD's reading level now. For instance, many read Harry Potter over the summer. These kids were nowhere near her in K and 1, but they blossomed. These are third graders. So I see where that saying comes from. It takes some of them longer to "get" the skill--but once it's down, a bright kid who likes books may really start to fly with it. (In fact, these kids are probably all gifted. Who knows how much? It would be arrogant of me to presume I know! They will be honors/AP students. They just didn't have the really startling early takeoff that DD did.)
I have to kind-of agree that this is possibility. This happened to my husband, sort-of. They actually thought he was "slow" in the early years, all his "gifted friends" went off to whatever they called it "Leap" or something like that. He was in a special something class/activity (he had hypotonia but I don't think they knew about it back then so it was never labled or addressed). Anyway, I don't know all the details but in 4th grade I believe it was his mom went to the parent-teacher conference fully prepared to hear about and dscuss my DH's deficits and the teacher was like - "Uh your son is very, very smart." By middle school he was doing much better than his "gifted" buddies and was grade accelerated in math classes in middle school and high school. He's one of the samrtest and non-arrogant people I know and he is a brilliant computer engineer today.
So, I believe that it can definitely happen and probabaly does happen a fair amount.
