Is it normal for a 2.5 yr old to...

[tiggersfamily]

Be able to recite books (Julia Donaldson type length) after reading it twice?

Assume you mean being read the book? Totally normal I think.

Mine likes to recite these books too, they’re super catchy. I mean, not word for word or anything, and probably not after a couple of reads, but he does seem to remember a lot of it.

My now 3YO liked to do this with Green Eggs and Ham around the same age. A few other Dr Seuss books too - I guess rhyming helps the words stick in their minds.

Mine can’t ‘recite’ them as such but knows all the words when we read them so ‘reads along’ with me.

Haha good to know! My son just told me the ugly five word for word and we only got it yesterday. I was like woah my memory is terrible in comparison to my son 😂

Not especially common, but not vanishingly rare either: some people just have excellent memories from a young age and learn well by rote.

I can still, at the age of nearly 45, repeat verbatim passages of prose and poetry that I first learned more than 40 years ago.

(My party piece was, and remains, Henry's speech at Agincourt from Henry V.)

It's a great skill and should be encouraged more, I think.

Yes, totally normal and really annoying because you can’t skip any pages to try to hurry along bedtime.

30 days hath September, April, June etc etc

Can remember that from being about two

sometimes
make sure you point to the words while you're reading them and they might just pick up reading as well.