yeah and it's then easy to believe in that a 5yo could read 10,000 books, cause the "educational system is different". i am quite amazed that some people buy that with serious face.
I think the 10,000 figure from BBC was possibly hyperbole or a mistake. The NYT article says 400 books this year… which is still a ton, but less so if you consider books that can be read in an hour or less.
It is entirely possible for a kid to learn to read by 3 or 3.5 years old, if parents are obsessive about it. In the long run life isn’t a race, and the kids who don’t learn to read until they are 6 catch up fine. But small children are quite capable if you push them.
I wouldn’t recommend it, but if you got your kid reading picture books all day for three years from ages 3–5, you could plausibly get to 10,000. Picture books are pretty short.
However, it sounds like this isn’t a literal 10,000 books. The New York Times story says the kid’s “CV” lists the 408 books he has read this year. So probably <1000 as a lifetime total.
It is the equivalent to myriad in English.