I could read when I was only two. But do you know, I have no idea how I learnt to do it! My mother managed to get me enrolled in Infants School a year early, at the age of four, because I stood in front of the Headmistress and reeled off most of the words from what I later realised was the Schonell Reading Age Test.

As a teacher, I had pupils who could barely read at the age of eleven and I used many different strategies to help them improve. Each child had their own 'access portal' to their brain. It is, I found, a very personal thing.

Oooh this is so interesting! My sister and her two daughters are incredibly gifted (very high IQs) but I don't think they would necessarily be able to teach, as they are all rather impatient.