This article was originally featured in Mamamia

By Emily Krecinski
Shichida Mum, Emily Krecinksi recalls the moment her husband discovered their daughter, Chloe’s ability to read

The first time we realised that Chloe knew her numbers and letters was when my husband was out washing the car.

He could hear her mumbling away and went to check up on her. She was just two at the time, and was reading our car’s licence plate! My husband actually took his phone out to get it on video, so he could send it to me.

We knew she could point to the letters of the alphabet, and knew a few numbers, but this came as a surprise.

She always appeared to be able to pick up new concepts easily and has been reading since she turned three. Now she’s four and a half, and just started school last month. Some of her favourite books are Cat in the Hat, Possum Magic, Slinky Malinki and The Fly Went By.

She also loves addition and subtraction, a few days ago she showed us she knows multiplication – all of a sudden, she said three 10s is 30. I hadn’t gone over that with her. She often throws things like that at us, we really have to keep up with her.

A Little Backseat Drivers Ability To Read

About a year ago she started looking at the GPS on the dashboard when we were out driving around. She and would read the street signs and speed limits out to us – she’d even tell me if I should speed up or slow down. She was a little backseat driver.

This has now developed, and the signs she reads have gotten more and more complicated. Now as we’re whizzing around, she’s saying keep left here, or go straight there.

Chloe seems to have developed memory and knowledge of numbers, which we worked on from an early age, and this has opened up a lot of other avenues for her.

She has been attending an early learning centre, called Shichida Australia, since she was 18 months old. I first heard about it on TV and thought it looked like an interesting program – mainly because it worked on skills like visualisation techniques, fine motor skills, confidence building and fun aspects of learning that didn’t seem to be offered in any other activities.