My two year old can read, now what?

[MooPointCowsOpinion]

She can read lots of 3 letter words made up of any of the short sounds, cat, dog, hen, fox, jug, zip... etc. She's known all the letter sounds for a year ish now so we took her into the primary school for a coffee morning a few months ago and asked what could she look at next, they said the only thing to do now was blending and forming words.

She loves letters, writing them reading them, so she drives the interest in this.

But I am a teacher, secondary maths, and I know how annoying it is to have your teaching derailed by an over enthusiastic parent or tutor.

I'm asking, hopefully in a non humble brag kind of way, would we do better to steer her inquisitive mind in a different way and not focus too much on this in case we do more harm than good for when she starts school? What can she do for the next two years to keep her mind active and engaged? She's prone to distraction and chaos without direction, so 'just leave her to be a toddler' would likely be a mistake unless we are all happy with the inevitable destruction of the world that would ensue from her being let loose.

One of mine could read at 3.5. Our solution was to send all the children for very academic private fee paying primary schools from age 4 or 5 where everyone was fairly bright. It worked very well. However the other one who read later did just as well so I don't think you need to assume anything from it.

“just leave her to be a toddler' would likely be a mistake unless we are all happy with the inevitable destruction of the world that would ensue from her being let loose.”

I think you probably need to stop “entertaining” her and allow her to learn boundaries or she is going to find nursery and school a huge challenge.

In the early years the prime learning areas are social and emotional development, language and physical development. These are the best indicators of future achievement not academic subjects.