This is exactly what we did. He was born in June, literally the middle of the year so we kept him back and he is the oldest second grader in his class. Didn't get an IEP, we knew he had ADHD and it has an official diagnosis and we intentionally kept him out of public schools because both my wife and I have ADHD and knew he wouldn't do well in a traditional desk setting. He goes to a Regio inspired school on a farm so he gets to spent most of every day even in winter outside which has been a game changer for his development.

Yeah, being an adult sucks, at the end of the day almost tge moment I crack open a book I start to nod off.

I have my eyesight and I did this as well. I would have my textbook on the desk and my novel in my lap and be reading under the desk.

Couldn't agree more, definitely not a problem. That's basically where he was in kindergarten and now in the second grade he is ahead of nearly all his peers.

Absolutely, we have less a problem with my son going tk sleep than we do staying asleep in the morning so if he wakes up to early we always encourage him to stay in bed and read as that is its own form of resting.

I'm honestly surprised my son hasn't tried something like this yet except we do still have the camera in his room so we would notice eventually.

You would be able to scare us away from supporting his desire to read even if you were trying to. We definitely know about taking care of our eyes though as my wife and I both have had eye issues so we are doing everything we can to be safe.

I mentioned previously that I was exaggerating to a point when I said that but I do truly believe reading milestones like this are unnecessary. Children should blossom into their reading at their own pace.

Absolutely!

Just read to her as often as you can. We have been reading to my son every night and more since the day he was born. We also have made it a point to limit technology and screen time for him. That's not to say he doesn't know his way saround technology, I'm an IT professional, our house if full of Alexa and computers and smart devices, he cracked the passcode on my wife's iPad when he was 4. That said, we never just put him in front of the TV or just handed him a iPad as a digital babysitter. He didn't play his first video game until this year (he is 8) and even then we started with Super Mario Bros on the NES which was my first video game at his age and his game time is limited to 2 hours per week total. When he is bored we usually tell him "OK, you can pick up your playroom or read a book." Guess which one he usually picks. His playroom hasn't been clean in months but at least the mess is contained.

We encourage reading and love buying home books, he always gets new books at Christmas, birthday, Easter and any other day we can find an excuse to buy them and trips to the bookstore are a regular anticipated family event for us. Just foster the love of reading in your daughter, read with her often, keep reading to and with her even after everyone says she should know how to read, ignore the school systems who might tell you they are behind for their age group and let the love and desire to read blossom when they are ready for it but no matter what keep reading with them. Despite his love of reading on his own, some of our most treasured moments are sitting down and reading together.

We dont have a bedside lamp for this reason honestly, didn't want to give him an easy way to wake himself up and stay awake, the led lantern he does have is quite bright though so that's good.

This is a great idea, he is asking me to read his current book when he is finished with it so maybe I can start with that.

Thank you, we definitely have our flaws as parents, as all parents do, but one thing we love is how must trust we have built with our son and its the #1 thing we strive to maintain.

In all fairness I will admit I was exaggerating when I said that. That said, my son's neighborhood friend is in the same grade as he is and is in public school and she does struggle with reading to the point where the school required them to get a tutor because she was not meeting their "milestones" for reading.

I also struggled with reading until I was in high school and it just took the right book at the right time for me like it did my son. (For me it was Dean Koontz' Fear Nothing audiobook on a two day drive to New Mexico, for my son it was Peter Brown's The Wild Robot.)

My wife and I are big proponents of not adhering to arbitrary developmental milestones and letting our child develop at their own pace because every child is different and forcing children into tutoring and into learning things when they are not ready does more often than not will instill resentment of something rather than the love of something. I remember this was a problem for me in school.

Yeah, I can definitely see this as being an issue as he grows more advanced in his reading ability which is already ahead of the curve for his grade. He also has ADHD so the hyperfocus kicks in heavily when he is reading.

We own a not insignificant number of books, fiction and non fiction, and I cannot wait until he is old enough to read some of them, especially the fiction so that we can share and discuss them together. We always have done everything we can to foster his love of reading and now he reads in the car on the way to school, on the way back from school, on the toilet before his evening shower and now apparently under the covers after bedtime :-D