To think people generally assume an early reader has been hothoused?

[Dinosforall]

I've recently spent some time on threads about DC learning to read early as DS has really taken off with it before starting school. I often see 'obviously kids who read before school have been hothoused.' Is this just something people say, or will that be the general assumption? (He hasn't been, he's just picked it up, alongside some early phonics activities at nursery.)

Obviously I know bragging about DS' reading ability wouldn't win me any friends in RL, but I'm not going to pretend he can't if it comes up.

My children are older now, and one thing I can say from the experience is that early readers stays in the top group, way past 10, throughout primary. Of course other children start to catch up. But they don't stop others progressing.
Maybe there are hot housed children. But if it's not their natural talent, they can only go as far as their talent. But the children with natural affinity to reading, they will keep ahead.
I think some people are just jealous and sarcastic, since they don't have the experience some people have.

I don’t understand how people have such intimate knowledge of all the other children in their kid’s class. I barely knew more than 3 or 4 names, let alone had inside info on their bloody reading ages! How much time are you spending at school that it even needs to come up in a conversation? It’s so cringeworthy to think anyone would give it enough thought that your child might have been “hothoused”. Most people are only interested in their own kids trust me!

My first son learnt to read in two languages on his own. I think it was because I had then had twins and he got a bit bored and neglected and ended up working it out! One day he just read out the back of a cereal packet on the breakfast table - I had no idea he could read! My other two were quite slow readers so definitely not down to hothousing at all.

BTW he read loads until secondary school - and then gave up completely.

Gingersausage, I have an experience of other people gossiping right behind me, when teacher came over to ask me if I approve my dc reading certain books out of the age range, while waiting for door to open to pick my child up. They used the word "hothousing", and they were standing right behind me. That was the time I learned the meaning of the word hothousing. So, even though it's unimaginable, it can be true.

DS taught himself to read at 2. I had no idea until he picked up my shopping list and read it aloud to me.

He enjoyed my shocked reaction so much, he repeated it at nursery school, with the same satisfying reactions, and in the shops, where people stared - oh, he knew and it was great fun!

Hothoused! Someone who tries to belittle you like that isn't speaking from a position of concern: they are plain jealous!

My first child emerged from the womb clutching a well thumbed copy of War and Peace, and to be honest we’ve never even had a book in the house before that as I personally think that books create thinking which in turn creates dissension.
However, somehow the foetus taught himself to read anyway.

@Ozgirl75 I hope for your sake it was a paperback

C section luckily

Depends. My daughter turned 4 in August. Started school in September able to write her name but didn't know any other letters. Once they started reading she just got it and raced through the levels and was completely free reading before she was 6. She's now year 7 and reading a midsummers night dream for fun (ie not a school text) but she's by no means a genius, top set for most things but totally in the normal curve. She wants to be a dr and that is probably achievable
for her but she's not going to be going off to oxford at 15 or anything ridiculous like that.

. Certainly by the time she was rising 5 she was a very competent reader and I hadn't done anything beyond read her school books with her in the evening. I therefore think particularly for those children born in the first half of the academic year that many are just ready to read. My daughter is competitive and wanted to be on the highest book band so progressed quickly but it's not like the other children in her class remained on pink level for the whole of infants!! I'm sure other parents thought I was hothousing her though.

I've tried to hothouse my sons (as my expectation level was quite high after my daughter) but they haven't responded in the same way!! But they are on the line and their outcome should be comparable to my daughter who just got it earlier. I could read at 3. I wasn't hothoused, I just had less distraction than many children do now and was largely self taught. I'm just a normal mum though!

My son could read before he could walk. Enjoyed reading in his younger years. He is now almost 12 and getting him to read a book is like pulling teeth. He CAN read, and well, but it is not a pleasant pastime for him and he would not choose to do it. Whereas myself and my daughter enjoy reading as a relaxing way to spend time. So, the fact your child can read at a young age wouldn't impress me, and doesn't mean, necessarily, that he is set for a life as a great scholar.

I was reading before I started school but definitely wasn't hot housed - parents had 5 children, there was no time for hot housing! And I don't think anyone would have assumed it was at the time but probably today there's more of a culture of it so its more likely to be assumed.

My clearly magnificent brain has not been passed down to my children though, DD only learnt to read in English last summer when she was 8, when I made her practice every day during the summer (so hothousing I guess? But she needed it at that point)

Stop obsessing. No one cares.

I was a very early reader. I loved books and still do. It was purely self driven. I hot housed myself. Is that wrong. Shall I burn my books. I do have hundreds. Nope.

My son had completed the hobbit and all 3 lord of the rings before 7 and was given an adult library card, with supervision. He learnt to read himself at 2, but we are a bookish type family, but never pushed him, just read to him.
He was moved into a different school that treated gifted children as a special need, which was great, as his other school couldn't cater for him.
This was all himself, in the 0.5 percent of the population , some children are just naturally inquisitive and hungry for learning.