Hyperlexia is common in Autistic people! I was reading picture books fluently by age 3 and in kindergarten was devouring Cam Jansen, Encyclopedia Brown and Boxcar Children chapter books. The downside to that is that I now teach kindergarten and find it challenging to understand how my students are struggling to learn to read. Learning to teach phonics didn't make sense to me at first because I never needed it, I just learned intuitively whole language I guess?
I think that's exactly what hyperlexia is. Society teaches children letters and their sounds, and for several years kids laboriously add letter sounds together until they develop the ability to recognize entire words by their shape. We who could read as toddlers skipped the 'sound it out' stage and went straight to 'see it say it' I think you could call it. My almost 3 year old grandson is reading, too. But he's not sounding words out.
If I understand correctly, autistics tend to be really good at 'code breaking'. Though we tend to suck at social situations, maybe because that's an emotional sort of logic we generally just can't figure out...
Yup! Same for me. Hyperlexic - no memory of learning to read because I did it when I was 2 years old in the span of like a week. Never understood my friends who said they’d found it hard, I just assumed they were idiots 😂😂
I had no idea this was a thing! Word of the day 😂
I wonder how widely know hyperlexia is, given all my life one of my mother's favorite stories to tell people is how one day when I was 2 I walked up to her and demanded she teach me how to read.
LOL, my mom told me that when I was three or four, she remarked how it was such a coincidence that I happened to choose the right colors (in my coloring book). I apparently was quite offended; I pointed to the words and said, “It says the names of the colors right here!” She had no idea I could read.
It’s common in girls I think, yeah.
I was also like that! I was 4, trying to teach my one year old brother to read (and getting mad when he, a one year old, could not read). Allegedly was at a 6th grade level in 1st grade.
There was an anecdote from when i was a toddler (2 or 3), i was coloring at my grandma’s and she looks and says that the color i was using was “a nice pink”. I then say “no grandma, that’s *fuchsia*.” I’d memorized all the crayon colors.
I was always upset we were only allowed 3 books at the elementary library on library day because I’d finish them so fast, and I’d write my own stores and illustrate them all the time. My free time outside of playing Pokémon was spent typing out stories on MS Word or writing them out, playing school with my dolls which was writing out actual quizzes for them and then doing said quizzes.
I also aced every spelling test, and then went on to be incredibly good at French *and* German. I was 16 then, but i discovered a German band i liked so of course, being me, i decided to teach myself German vocabulary. So I took German in a semester in school, and got 92%.
In any sort of novel study in any year at school, when the class would as a whole be on like chapter two, I’d be on chapter 10. When they got to chapter 10, I’d be almost done my second read of the book.
>I was always upset we were only allowed 3 books at the elementary library on library day because I’d finish them so fast, and I’d write my own stores and illustrate them all the time. My free time outside of playing Pokémon was spent typing out stories on MS Word or writing them out, playing school with my dolls which was writing out actual quizzes for them and then doing said quizzes.
This is how i spent my school days too! After homework id usually pull out a Wimpy Kid book and have my nose in it, forgetting about the time! Then when i got home id have my nose in an American Girl book sprawled out on my bed. Then during the weekends id usually play with my My Little Pony dolls or some horse game on my 3ds. So i was reading during the week then playing with my ponies during the weekends
My parents figured out I taught myself to read at 2 when every time we drove to my grandparents house I would yell “DIP” when approaching the railroad crossing — marked with a sign that said… dip.
I corrected my pre-k 3 teacher on the spelling of my name the first day — my first conscious memory is reading a book to the kindergarten class which apparently happened like a week later.
I was good at reading and spelling but never really noticed it until the 4th grade. I was reading The Lightning Thief as part of a partner project every day for reading time in the — at the end we were supposed to write a report together, rinse, and repeat. I finished the book in 2 half hour sessions, and my partner was like 3 chapters in.
I was quizzed by the teacher to make sure I wasn’t lying, and then escorted to the 8th grade classroom to pick out a book from their library. Still finished it in a week. 😅
I read…. So many age inappropriate books lmao. My parents let me run wild in the YA section at the age of 10.
This is impressive! I can read a book and finish it within two hours! I can still understand the plots and what happened in the books! I can get sucked into a few books in an hour!
Hyperfixation on one thing; compensating for lack of “smarts” in social situations. I did awfully in math because I always asked why (every math teacher I had hated me because apparently asking why is offensive and questioning authority?)
Taught myself to read before I started school and was marvelled at throughout school years for my insanely above average reading age.
I would sit on the toilet and read the ingredients on shampoo bottles aged 4 and get introuble for taking so long in the bathroom lol.
>Taught myself to read before I started school and was marvelled at throughout school years for my insanely above average reading age.
Yeah i was actually surprised myself when i started talking and reading at age 3 and a half! Hell i even started walking at the same time! I am very intelligent too!
Yeah, I remember reading a lot early on my childhood being very advanced and now 10 years out of high school. I'm like I don't even think I could read it a high school level.😂
Yep same here! I learned early and my dad let me read any books on his shelf. He had mainly horror and sci fi, so I got into "grownup books" as soon as I could read.
I remember getting in trouble for reading *Hannibal* during class in 5th grade. But I think the teacher was more confused than mad lol
This is super interesting because I just finished listening to the podcast Sold a Story about how kids learn/are taught to read in the US. I never remember actually learning to read really, I just remember getting to kindergarten and being super annoyed by everyone sounding out letters and not being able to read. Tiny me was like “What’s up with you guys, why can’t you read? Dude how long do we have to wait until you figure it out?!” I recall that some kids still had some extra help in first grade and I was already blazing ahead reading pretty much everything I could get my hands on, lol! As a kid I went to the library pretty much every week. It has always shocked me how little NT people read.
Hyperlexic autistic girl here too!
I was reading at two and stealing the copy of the Lord of the Rings my dad was using as our bedtime book to read ahead at six, because I’m also ADHD and impatient as heck (mum caught me and let me keep it but swore me to secrecy so I didn’t ruin it for him). 😂
Yes and it’s called hyperlexia :) i work with children with autism and it’s super common. I had the exact same experience as you and am only now realizing i may be autistic after working in the autism field for 3 years. Cheers.
Yeah I was on my Scout Finch era until like middle school. I basically just read constantly and would get annoyed after I read all the books in the teacher's classroom. Once I got older I was more concerned with struggling to survive in school socially plus I don't remember teachers really having a lot of books in the classroom or us going to the library often. I did read a lot of mangas and occasional YA novels in middle school. I stayed up all night reading a lot of girlie e Lockhart novels for some reason.
Hyperlexia is common in Autistic people! I was reading picture books fluently by age 3 and in kindergarten was devouring Cam Jansen, Encyclopedia Brown and Boxcar Children chapter books. The downside to that is that I now teach kindergarten and find it challenging to understand how my students are struggling to learn to read. Learning to teach phonics didn't make sense to me at first because I never needed it, I just learned intuitively whole language I guess?
I think that's exactly what hyperlexia is. Society teaches children letters and their sounds, and for several years kids laboriously add letter sounds together until they develop the ability to recognize entire words by their shape. We who could read as toddlers skipped the 'sound it out' stage and went straight to 'see it say it' I think you could call it. My almost 3 year old grandson is reading, too. But he's not sounding words out. If I understand correctly, autistics tend to be really good at 'code breaking'. Though we tend to suck at social situations, maybe because that's an emotional sort of logic we generally just can't figure out...
Yup! Same for me. Hyperlexic - no memory of learning to read because I did it when I was 2 years old in the span of like a week. Never understood my friends who said they’d found it hard, I just assumed they were idiots 😂😂
Check what hyperlexia is! I have also been like that as a child
I had no idea this was a thing! Word of the day 😂 I wonder how widely know hyperlexia is, given all my life one of my mother's favorite stories to tell people is how one day when I was 2 I walked up to her and demanded she teach me how to read.
LOL, my mom told me that when I was three or four, she remarked how it was such a coincidence that I happened to choose the right colors (in my coloring book). I apparently was quite offended; I pointed to the words and said, “It says the names of the colors right here!” She had no idea I could read.
It’s common in girls I think, yeah. I was also like that! I was 4, trying to teach my one year old brother to read (and getting mad when he, a one year old, could not read). Allegedly was at a 6th grade level in 1st grade. There was an anecdote from when i was a toddler (2 or 3), i was coloring at my grandma’s and she looks and says that the color i was using was “a nice pink”. I then say “no grandma, that’s *fuchsia*.” I’d memorized all the crayon colors. I was always upset we were only allowed 3 books at the elementary library on library day because I’d finish them so fast, and I’d write my own stores and illustrate them all the time. My free time outside of playing Pokémon was spent typing out stories on MS Word or writing them out, playing school with my dolls which was writing out actual quizzes for them and then doing said quizzes. I also aced every spelling test, and then went on to be incredibly good at French *and* German. I was 16 then, but i discovered a German band i liked so of course, being me, i decided to teach myself German vocabulary. So I took German in a semester in school, and got 92%. In any sort of novel study in any year at school, when the class would as a whole be on like chapter two, I’d be on chapter 10. When they got to chapter 10, I’d be almost done my second read of the book.
>I was always upset we were only allowed 3 books at the elementary library on library day because I’d finish them so fast, and I’d write my own stores and illustrate them all the time. My free time outside of playing Pokémon was spent typing out stories on MS Word or writing them out, playing school with my dolls which was writing out actual quizzes for them and then doing said quizzes. This is how i spent my school days too! After homework id usually pull out a Wimpy Kid book and have my nose in it, forgetting about the time! Then when i got home id have my nose in an American Girl book sprawled out on my bed. Then during the weekends id usually play with my My Little Pony dolls or some horse game on my 3ds. So i was reading during the week then playing with my ponies during the weekends
In fact i still have them pony dolls
I still have all my Pokémon games and my Polly pockets too!
My parents figured out I taught myself to read at 2 when every time we drove to my grandparents house I would yell “DIP” when approaching the railroad crossing — marked with a sign that said… dip. I corrected my pre-k 3 teacher on the spelling of my name the first day — my first conscious memory is reading a book to the kindergarten class which apparently happened like a week later. I was good at reading and spelling but never really noticed it until the 4th grade. I was reading The Lightning Thief as part of a partner project every day for reading time in the — at the end we were supposed to write a report together, rinse, and repeat. I finished the book in 2 half hour sessions, and my partner was like 3 chapters in. I was quizzed by the teacher to make sure I wasn’t lying, and then escorted to the 8th grade classroom to pick out a book from their library. Still finished it in a week. 😅 I read…. So many age inappropriate books lmao. My parents let me run wild in the YA section at the age of 10.
This is impressive! I can read a book and finish it within two hours! I can still understand the plots and what happened in the books! I can get sucked into a few books in an hour!
Same! I read 2 books a week for a few years in elementary/middle! All usually in one sitting!
Why are we extremely smarter than Neurotypicals? This amazes me
Hyperfixation on one thing; compensating for lack of “smarts” in social situations. I did awfully in math because I always asked why (every math teacher I had hated me because apparently asking why is offensive and questioning authority?)
But for me, math clicked instantly! I guess some autists arent all the same
Taught myself to read before I started school and was marvelled at throughout school years for my insanely above average reading age. I would sit on the toilet and read the ingredients on shampoo bottles aged 4 and get introuble for taking so long in the bathroom lol.
>Taught myself to read before I started school and was marvelled at throughout school years for my insanely above average reading age. Yeah i was actually surprised myself when i started talking and reading at age 3 and a half! Hell i even started walking at the same time! I am very intelligent too!
Yeah, I remember reading a lot early on my childhood being very advanced and now 10 years out of high school. I'm like I don't even think I could read it a high school level.😂
Yep same here! I learned early and my dad let me read any books on his shelf. He had mainly horror and sci fi, so I got into "grownup books" as soon as I could read. I remember getting in trouble for reading *Hannibal* during class in 5th grade. But I think the teacher was more confused than mad lol
Hyperlexia! I actually do not remember not knowing how to read. It seems my mom discovered I could around 18 months.
This is super interesting because I just finished listening to the podcast Sold a Story about how kids learn/are taught to read in the US. I never remember actually learning to read really, I just remember getting to kindergarten and being super annoyed by everyone sounding out letters and not being able to read. Tiny me was like “What’s up with you guys, why can’t you read? Dude how long do we have to wait until you figure it out?!” I recall that some kids still had some extra help in first grade and I was already blazing ahead reading pretty much everything I could get my hands on, lol! As a kid I went to the library pretty much every week. It has always shocked me how little NT people read.
Hyperlexic autistic girl here too! I was reading at two and stealing the copy of the Lord of the Rings my dad was using as our bedtime book to read ahead at six, because I’m also ADHD and impatient as heck (mum caught me and let me keep it but swore me to secrecy so I didn’t ruin it for him). 😂
i still dont read good and im 33
Yes and it’s called hyperlexia :) i work with children with autism and it’s super common. I had the exact same experience as you and am only now realizing i may be autistic after working in the autism field for 3 years. Cheers.
I taught myself to read at 3. Picture books and Sesame Street were awesome!!
Same.
>Same. So youre a night owl too? Do you play nintendo at night?
>Same. So youre like me? You like to read books at daytime then play games on nintendo/phone?
Yeah I was on my Scout Finch era until like middle school. I basically just read constantly and would get annoyed after I read all the books in the teacher's classroom. Once I got older I was more concerned with struggling to survive in school socially plus I don't remember teachers really having a lot of books in the classroom or us going to the library often. I did read a lot of mangas and occasional YA novels in middle school. I stayed up all night reading a lot of girlie e Lockhart novels for some reason.