British boy who taught himself to read aged two joins Mensa
A boy who taught himself to read and count – including in Mandarin – while playing on his tablet has become the UK’s youngest member of Mensa.
Teddy Hobbs, four, of Portishead, Somerset, has become the youngest member of the high-IQ-score club after his parents asked health visitors to assess him before he starts school.
Teddy taught himself to read while watching television and playing on his tablet at the age of two without his parents even noticing.
Teddy’s mother, Beth, said they initially thought he was just making sounds while playing on his tablet, before they realised he was actually sounding out numerals in the Chinese language.
“He chooses a new topic of something to be interested in every couple of months or so, it seems. Sometimes it’s numbers. It was times tables for a while – that was a very intense period – then countries and maps and learning to count in different languages,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“He was playing on his tablet – we’ve put appropriate games like Thomas the Tank Engine on – and he was sat there … making the sounds I just didn’t recognise and I asked him what it was and it was, ‘Oh mummy, I’m counting in Mandarin’.”
