Anonymous
Post 06/16/2024 08:20     Subject: 17-month-old recognizes all letters and sounds of most
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I just wrote a longer reply then accidentally deleted it. But wanted to say that PP's should distinguish between a precocious reader and hyperlexia. Hyperlexia is atypical development and comes with other challenges (low reading comprehension, language delays, etc.), including very high rates of autism. 17 months is too early to know how things will develop, but if the daycare teachers are saying it's unusual, OP is right to be paying attention and learning what other developmental signs to look out for. Either way, OP should be impressed and not overly worried. By 2.5 or so it should be clearer if it's hyperlexia or "regular" early reading. https://www.healthline.com/health/hyperlexia#signs


You know you can have Autism be able to read and comprehend what you read, right?


Not all kids with autism are hyperlexic (6-14%), but most hyperlexic kids have autism (84%). Hyplerlexia with autism has low reading comprehension and those children need additional intervention supports to develop comprehension. Happy to share more links if you’d like to learn more.

https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/helping-children-autism-and-hyperlexia-learn-understand-what-they-read-333217


The quoted article is about helping kids who HAPPEN to have both hyperlexia and ASD. It does not say that the two always are linked. It also does not support the alleged statistics quoted above.

If there is a real refereed journal article with those statistical numbers, then please post a full citation. I have access to a university research library, so I can get access to nearly any legitimate science article.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2024 08:15     Subject: Re:17-month-old recognizes all letters and sounds of most
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My son learned the alphabet and sounds really early on and my daughter’s speech therapist said it was a bad thing and suggested autism (which I do think he has). He’s 6 now and still crazy smart though.


I’ve heard hyperlexia is linked to ASD. Given our family history I wouldn’t be shocked.


We were all early to learn letters, numbers, and Phonics, and also early readers - for 4 generations now - and zero ASD anywhere in the family tree. Correlation is not causality. Your speech therapist should know better than to suggest that.

If OP’s DC is ready, and OP is a better judge of this than random people posting on DCUM, then it is fine to get some Phonetic beginning readers (the Bob Books are affordable and great starter Phonetic readers to use for this) and let DC try to read. The trick is to only do reading for maybe 5 minutes/day at first. After there is comfort and confidence, and a longer attention span, then maybe 5-10 minutes/day.
Anonymous
Post 06/15/2024 18:04     Subject: 17-month-old recognizes all letters and sounds of most
I had to comment here because this was me. I was an asynchronous developer (physical and social skills lagged behind cognitive stuff), but I was always the top student in my class. I used my lifelong interest in reading to become a book editor and am now a c-suite executive at a book publisher. My early reading may not have been a sign of anything earth-shattering but it did lead me to a career that brings me a lot of joy.
Anonymous
Post 06/14/2024 15:20     Subject: 17-month-old recognizes all letters and sounds of most
Anonymous wrote:For the past two weeks DD will recognize every letter in alphabet and can make the sounds of twenty consistently. She recently showed she can pick out letters from individual words as well. We read at home but definitely don’t work on letter recognition. Apparently they do letter of the week at daycare so I’m assuming she picked it up there? Her teacher said she’s the only one in the class who can do this. I’m impressed. My two oldest didn’t do this until maybe 3 or 4 when it was directly taught in preschool. Is this a sign of hyperlexia or am I overthinking it? She’s memorized a few easy books too but I don’t think she’s recognizing words but just has memorized the words by page.

I know in the long run it doesn’t matter if she’s reading at 2 or 7 but I’m curious if others have experienced this with their toddlers? Where are they now academically? Were they early readers?


Let us know when she's reading "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" at age 8 and we'll be suitably impressed!
Anonymous
Post 06/14/2024 07:12     Subject: 17-month-old recognizes all letters and sounds of most
Anonymous wrote:Kids who learn to read early usually stay among the top readers in their classes throughout their school years. They're not the ones struggling to keep up later on.

With kids who learn to read at an average age or late, you can't really predict where they end up -- some of them also rise to the top. I learned to read late because of the environment I grew up in, but I caught up to the level of the early readers really quickly. I taught my own kids when they were 4 because I didn't want them to be embarrassed like I was about not being an early reader.

It's never a bad thing to be an early reader.


Yes. In our family, we now are in the 4th generation of reading at age 3. It has been a competitive advantage for that whole time.
Anonymous
Post 06/08/2024 23:15     Subject: 17-month-old recognizes all letters and sounds of most
Kids who learn to read early usually stay among the top readers in their classes throughout their school years. They're not the ones struggling to keep up later on.

With kids who learn to read at an average age or late, you can't really predict where they end up -- some of them also rise to the top. I learned to read late because of the environment I grew up in, but I caught up to the level of the early readers really quickly. I taught my own kids when they were 4 because I didn't want them to be embarrassed like I was about not being an early reader.

It's never a bad thing to be an early reader.
Anonymous
Post 06/07/2024 13:13     Subject: 17-month-old recognizes all letters and sounds of most
Anonymous wrote:Most parents think their kid is gifted because the growth in all areas is large for the first 5-6 years of a child’s development. Humans are amazing creatures. Things level out as you develop more into upper teens and twenties.


I realize this is an old thread, but this is such a good point. It is bananas how quickly an infant/toddler/early school aged kid learns. My daughter had zero words four months ago and now has whole sentences. It is wild. There’s no growth/learning like that in adults or even bigger kids. I’m like, if I could learn as quickly as she does I’d be a genius and work way less.

But very had to say from her 14 mo self how she will do/who she will be academically. So I’m just gonna keep being impressed w the crazy rate of kid brain development (and mildly jealous too, ha)
Anonymous
Post 06/07/2024 12:53     Subject: 17-month-old recognizes all letters and sounds of most
My son was similar. He was a late talker so he did speech therapy and many of his first words were actually colors, letters etc. I recall the speech therapist laughing about how unusual it was. He is now 8. He taught himself to read at age 4 but quickly advanced to 2nd grade level by the time K started. He is now reading books geared toward middle schoolers, and comprehends well. We had him take the WISC for AAP admission and he scored mid 140's on the verbal section. I kept waiting for him to "even out" as I've read many times on this board, but I don't think it's going to happen.
Anonymous
Post 06/07/2024 12:40     Subject: 17-month-old recognizes all letters and sounds of most
I taught myself to read at age 4 and by 5 could decode college level texts, I'm not making that up either. My parents didn't even try to teach me how to read, I just watched my older brother.

My daughter also read early and she is an adult now and reads a lot of books. I think you'll find that someone who takes to reading early ends up.....reading a lot of books. Not necessarily becoming a lawyer or a rocket scientist or even being autistic. Just, reads a lot.
Anonymous
Post 06/07/2024 12:35     Subject: 17-month-old recognizes all letters and sounds of most
I laughed 😂
Anonymous
Post 06/07/2024 12:34     Subject: Re:17-month-old recognizes all letters and sounds of most
Anonymous wrote:17 month old? MY kid began to recognize all letters and sounds at 17 DAYS old!! 17 months is a bit long don't you think?
lol
Anonymous
Post 12/16/2023 11:48     Subject: 17-month-old recognizes all letters and sounds of most
Most parents think their kid is gifted because the growth in all areas is large for the first 5-6 years of a child’s development. Humans are amazing creatures. Things level out as you develop more into upper teens and twenties.
Anonymous
Post 12/16/2023 11:44     Subject: 17-month-old recognizes all letters and sounds of most
Anonymous wrote:One would think that by the third child no one is overly impressed by little things… no it wasn’t the case with my kid but every time I thought he was unusually good at something it turned out to be pretty insignificant in the overall scheme of things.
By now I think what matters is high self esteem, ambition, and ability to work hard.


I agree with this. Child could read at 2 and similarly precocious with numbers. But no one needs to be that gifted and kids who rose to the top by middle school are smart *enough* and also have the skills pp lists above.