Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
I got an adult card at the local library while still a kid. I blitzed through the stuff in the Children's department, and the sorts of things I wanted to read were upstairs in the Adult sections. (I read beyond my grade level from the beginning.) I do recall having to get a signed form from my parents saying it was okay by them.
And I recall getting accused of having a book report I did for school ghost written by mom or dad. No, sorry, but I really do have that vocabulary and write at that level... 
In later years, I was introduced to Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings by an English teacher who decided that if I was going to read books not part of the assigned curriculum in her class, they should at least be good, and handed me the Ballantime PB editions of LoTR.. It took about 100 pages for the story to kick in and grab me, but once it had I finished the trilogy over a weekend. (And became one of the folks who spent more time in the Appendices piecing out the back story of the earlier Ages, and reached a point of doing passable Quenya calligraphy.)
A chap elsewhere described getting praise for how hard he must have worked to achieve his grade level and academic accomplishments in school, and looking at those praising him with blank incomprehension. He hadn't worked at all. He was simply one of those bright kids who got it, immediately, and remembered it. I understood, because that had been me, if I was interested in the topic. If I wasn't, it was a very different story. I spent time and effort in later years finding ways to get myself interested in various things and find mental hooks on which to hang my attention in consequence.
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Dennis |
I was reading chapter books at age 4.
When I was 3, the librarian put up a sign warning parents not to disturb children that were reading. (In hindsight, I think that was more because the librarian couldn't laugh when said 3 year old would tell the disturber to take care of their own children and let me get back to my book.)
As to the interested, in college I took medical terminology self paced. I took the last 6 out of the 7 tests in 2 hours. Yes, I aced them. Studied over Christmas break. Someone commented to me that there was a very smart person taking medical terminology when the grades were posted at the end of the week.