Comment by x1n13y84issmd42

Maybe I can share an anecdote from my childhood?

I was born in the 80s, in USSR, and learned reading at 3 y.o. thanks to my mom who would read stories to me constantly while I was sitting next to her, trying to figure those mysterious symbols out.

When I got to elementary school, one of the topics kids would discuss first is how old they were when they started reading, and it turns out that 3 y.o. readers were not rare at all, quite opposite - most of my classmates started reading around the ages of 3 & 5. And if someone admitted they didn't start reading by the age of 6, they would get concerned looks from us all, like "Are you even ok mate?". A couple of kids who went to school not being able to read on their own, write and count at least up to 100 struggled to study and were lagging behind.

And that wasn't the case of our parents trying to raise prodigies, that's just where the bar was at the time. Also lack of any kind of digital entertainment and 3 state TV channels.