I went to grade school before gifted programs existed but I was reading at a 4th grade level in 1st grade. By 2nd grade they couldn’t figure out what to do with me so they just put me in with the “advanced”2nd grade reading group who were still reading the 2nd grade reader I had read the previous year.
I spent the greater portion of my elementary school years bored out of my skull.
Like you, I was gifted in reading. At the age of three, I was reading newspapers. By the age of six, I was reading Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King and even Harlequin Romances.
In third and fourth grades, we had separate reading groups. The groups were arranged by reading ability. I was always in the “gifted” group, which usually consisted of three or four students. The books or , as we called them, “Readers” were at least two grades ahead of the rest of the class.
Unfortunately, my math skills were nonexistent.