Day in the Life of an Idiot

That's ridiculous. I'm sure that Google can help, and if not Google, a friend with an ERIC account to muster educational research that says this is wrong.

I was a similar reader to Mason. (I don't know about the other parts of his intellectual gifts--don't think I understood upper level biology! I just read adult fiction books. Though first grade I read The Boy's King Arthur and The Boy's Robin Hood and other old-fashioned kid's books like those.) I remember reading the SRA cards they used to use in the 1970s in the first grade, while the other children had phonics instruction. I was bored out of my skull and the emerging readers were more bored still. At least they didn't stop me from picking out what I liked in the library!

Go to bat for him. When my mom was a girl, they used to try to turn left-handed children into righties. Same educational theory.

My kid isn't an early reader, but his school does a lot better about accommodating his strong interest in math. They don't say, "you shouldn't be trying to do those kinds of problems yet." You know?