[smeej]

Yeah, my reading story is apparently really odd. Didn't realize that until I was much older.

My mom read to me a lot when I was really little, pointing at the words as she read them, and as she tells it, one day when I was 3 I just told her it was my turn and I read books to her. She figured maybe I'd memorized a couple favorites, but on our next trip to the library, she found out some switch had flipped in my head and I was now "a reader."

Neither of my parents had younger siblings or cousins around and I was their first, and apparently they didn't remember their own childhood reading learning very well, so, "Oh, I guess she reads now," was as far as they looked into it until my preschool teachers were very surprised when I started the next year.

I don't really have any explanation for it other than "when I see words, I know what they mean," so unfortunately I don't think it's particularly helpful or generalizable. Just a quirk I guess.