The Curse of Being an Advanced Reader as a Child

A tale of glory, hubris, and a fall from grace so painful the scars lasted a lifetime.

When I tell people that I am twenty-three years old, the usual reaction I receive is surprise. I like to think that it surprises people because I am so mature and full of wisdom, but it may have more to do with how young I am for my grade. I entered kindergarten at four years and ten months of age. The state of Maryland raised the elementary school age minimum only a year later. I snuck in under the wire. 

My entry into the world of academia was largely due to me not attending preschool. Frankly, I don’t think I missed out on much. While others in my age group were taking naps in windowless church basements, I was playing in the park with my neighborhood chums. My impression of preschool is that its primary functions are teaching kids not to be little assholes to each other and teaching the alphabet. But at four years old, I was way beyond all that. I was already socialized AND already committed to a rigorous pursuit of education. 

My earliest memory of my life is my mother teaching me how to read. We were sitting on the floor of my bedroom, leaning against the twin bed, and my mom pulled out the big, blue book of Disney fairytales. She turned to the first page of the first chapter, Snow White and The Seven Dwarves. She pointed to three little letters on the page and said, “The first word my father ever taught me to read was the word ‘The.’ And that’s the first word I’ll teach you.” 

“The,” I echoed, pressing my pudgy, little fingers on the letters. I stared at the word for a long time, searing it into my brain for all eternity. It was the single most exciting moment of my life. It was the moment that I became what my mother calls, “an aggressive reader.” 

When I told my father that I was writing an essay on my early reading years, he recalled how I would “open a book, point at a word, and demand to know what it spelt.” 

“You didn’t ask what the word was,” he continued, “You demanded!” 

My mother corroborated his story, adding only that I was apparently “extremely, extremely competitive” when it came to reading. 

My childhood competition was my dear sister Caitlin. Being two years older than me, she was already mostly literate when I first began reading. But I was determined to catch up. I saw myself as a kind of Serena Williams figure - the younger sister, destined to one day surpass the older in greatness.

It should be noted that this was a completely one-sided feud. Caitlin was a kind, gentle child who was only ever nice to me. In truth, I probably owe all of my intellectual excellence to Caitlin. Without her, I would have had no one to vie against in the scholarly field. But I didn’t realize what a blessing she was at the time. I only saw her as the foe I was fated to vanquish. 

My borderline maniacal need to best my sister finally bore fruit when I entered kindergarten and was immediately hailed as an “extremely advanced reader.” The teachers sectioned me and all the other small geniuses off into Reading Group Z, the highest reading level of them all. It was there that we sat on bean bag thrones, sternly hushing the rubes who dared disturb our quiet reading time. 

The competition within the elite of Reading Group Z mainly centered on who could read the fastest. I admit that there were times in which I would flip to the next page of a book before fully reading the last one just to give the impression that I was some kind of prodigy speed-reader. But this wasn’t an everyday occurrence. I only did it when I felt the need to reassert my dominance within Group Z. 

Since reading comprehension, basic addition and subtraction, and spelling are the only real ways to assess intelligence level at such a young age, I was told by both my teachers and my parents that I was an “incredibly bright young girl.” These compliments gave my pea-sized brain a dopamine rush stronger than that of crack cocaine. 

I remember one day from this era of my childhood in particular. I read the entirety of the big, blue book of Disney fairytales, cover to cover, in one day. And while I did genuinely enjoy this reading marathon, I really only did it to make my mother proud. Once I finished the book, I sat on the couch that overlooked our driveway and waited for my mothers car to pull in. When she finally did arrive home, she was greeted by an overly excited Little Keara at the door. I told her my big news and her eyes lit up. She wrapped me in a warm hug and told me how impressed and proud she was of me. I felt very proud of me too.

I suppose I have always been largely motivated by praise. Praise from my parents, praise from my peers, praise from literally anyone at all. If we want to get topical about it, one could say that “Word of Affirmation” are my ultimate love language. But too much of anything can be a bad thing. 

In my case, the many praises I received for my reading abilities led me to believe that I was extremely gifted and undeniably special. And like anyone who possesses a special talent, I based my entire sense of self off of it. 

A sense of self that would soon be shaken to its core by just one little subject. Math. 

There are not enough words in the English language for me to adequately describe how much I despise the subject of math. The fact that mathematicians are still discovering “new” equations and theorems makes me sick to my stomach. Math is frustrating, often useless, and the very mention of it makes my face scrunch up in the same way it did when I read The Cut’s “What It’s Like To Date A Horse” article. But the reason for which I hate math the most is that I am very, very bad at it. And it was this horrible discovery that destroyed all illusions of being gifted, of being special. For that, I will never truly forgive math. 

The first kind of math that broke my brain was fractions. It was the second grade and the class was working silently on a page of basic fraction equations. Once you completed the page, you could move from your desk to the communal carpet and listen to Mr. Sargo perform his dramatic reading of The Story of Ferdinand. 

Before I knew it, every single one of my classmates was sitting on the carpet except for me. My incompetence in fractions was so staggering that it inspired genuine pity in my peers. Three of my classmates were actually so moved by my stupidity that they excused themselves from reading time to come help me finish my worksheet. After ten minutes of trying to explain the concept of fractions to me, they eventually gave up and wrote in the answers for me when Mr. Sargo wasn’t looking. 

I was on the verge of tears the whole time. 

To make matters worse, everyone in the grade could apparently read now! Perhaps they didn’t read as proficiently as myself, but they were still basically literate. Which meant that math aptitude was quickly replacing reading aptitude as the central measurement of intelligence. My special talent was depreciating in value by the minute. And whatever talent I did possess in reading was eclipsed by the shadow of my weakness in math. 

By the third grade, I was no longer special. The talks the teachers had with my parents were no longer centered on my gifts - they were centered on my deficits. Not one to take things lying down, I began searching for something else to excel at. All I needed was one other thing to be exceptionally good at and I could keep feeling special. I tried sports, I tried instruments, I tried fine arts, I tried chess club. But alas, no dice. 

Perhaps it was a blessing to experience a fall from grace so young in life. Eating crow at only six years old surely builds character, no? Surely it must teach you some lesson about hubris or overcoming obstacles or staging a comeback? To that, I couldn’t say. 

All I can say is that now, at twenty-three years old, when people find out my age and ask me why I’m so young for my grade, I reply, “Well, I was actually a really advanced reader.”