Is this unusual?

[roboticdaydream]

My 3 year old seems to pick things up much quicker than my older dd did at her age.

She can count to 100, count in tens, count a number of objects. She can also sight read a large number of familiar words and can use her phonic knowledge to read books phonetically. Her reading is really progressing and she reads level 2/3 books, not just ORT but lots of others. Some words she will sound out and others she just recognises and whizzes through them.

Writing - she is pretty average I think, makes a fair attempt at writing her name.

She uses words like 'otherwise' in everyday conversation and is constantly asking questions.

I am very proud of her and obviously as her mum I think she is doing well, but I was wondering whether her abilities are particularly unusual and as she doesn't start school for a year, whether or not I should encourage her further (she loves Maths games and reading) or try and discourage her so that she can learn more of that sort of thing in reception? Have heard some teachers don't like children to arrive reading - but not sure I can stop her!

to me she sounds very bright if not 'gifted'. check out nagc www.nagcbritain.org.uk for information and support with your daughter. they have lots of free info particularly for early years support.

Thanks I will do that. She started surprising me when she read her first word at 2.9 and is a delightfully quirky, very sensitive little girl :)

It's on the bright end of the spectrum, yes. It's often hard at that age to know how much is basic recognition/repetition and how much is true learning. Like the difference between counting and actual adding for example.

She sounds v clever. DD was/is exactly the same and I actually think a lot of it was personality coupled with being around me at all times (adult company and a lot of talking). She certainly could read/write/do basic maths/use complex vocab at 3 but the thing was that she wanted to do it. She was just that way inclined. Same as me at that age apparently. I am bright tbh in the classical sense but nowt to write home about. At that age it's hard to tell though. While they largely even out and you see a huge amount of difference settling into a more average spectrum, you do see some children continuing along the same line.

If she's happy and enjoying herself I'd just encourage her in every little thing she loves, be it reading or pretending to be Spiderman. And enjoy her, she sounds a delight.

I would encourage her, there is plenty to do/get to grips with in Reception even if a child is already reading well. She will have all the exciting social stuff plus routines to learn. Dd was reading well in reception and used to sometimes go to year 1 to do literacy/numeracy, she loves school and wasn't bored at all.

Do not stop her from learning or wanting to learn. And definitely encourage her. If you hold her back it can be a battle getting them back to the stage of wanting to learn.

It was my natural instinct to encourage her - so am happy to keep on doing that. It is really interesting how different all my dcs are. ds hardly talks at 20 mths and likes climbing, dd1 is averagely bright and a very good reader, but dd2 is different again.

I agree with the encouragement - but also make sure she's developing the areas that she may be less inclined towards as well, like physical activity and stretching herself outside her comfort zone with that kind of thing. She does indeed sound very bright, and must be a pleasure to have around, but you don't want her development to be one-sided.

when was she 3? my ds was 3 a couple of months ago and can count and talk really well but he's my oldest so i feel he's been held back a bit by having younger siblings. your dd sounds great! i don't see anything wrong with encouraging reading, i think teachers aren't keen on it in case kids get confused with different styles of learning to read but if she's bright then she shouldn't have any problems doing it the 'school' way. is she reading by recognising words you read to her regularly or putting sounds of letters together to read new things by herself?

She was three in November. She does recognise some not easily decodable words like 'the' 'you' etc but she mainly reads by blending together the sounds. She knows her phonics really well.

She is actually reading - not memorising familiar stories. Got her a set of Songbirds phonics books and she is ploughing through them.

I've got 3 and yes, the younger ones do pick up things that the older ones do. Dd2 and ds were both singing the alphabet by 2yo because it was something dd1 loved to sing.
Ds is a fluent reader (he turned 4 last month) mainly because the other two love reading, so they get out their books to read, and so does he, so he learnt without any apparent effort.

Hmm, shame it doesn't seem to be rubbing off on my ds then! He says a handful of unclear words and certainly doesn't know his alphabet.