At age 3, boy becomes youngest member of high-IQ club

What was your greatest achievement at age 2? Did you take the first steps? Started talking? Started the enjoyment?

Theodore Hobbs went further: he taught himself to read. This made him, aged 3, the youngest member of Mensa, the international association for the gifted, in the UK. The organization accepts people who score 98% or more on an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test.

Teddy’s mother, Beth Hobbes, says her son learned to read while watching television and playing games on his tablet.

“He was playing on the tablet, making sounds that I just didn’t recognize, and I asked what it was, and he said, ‘Mommy, I’m counting in Mandarin,’” she recalls.

Today, at the age of 4, the child prodigy has learned not only to read in English, his mother tongue, but also to count to 100 in six different languages.

Such genius is a source of pride for Teddy’s parents, but also of concern.

“He’s starting to realize that his friends still can’t read, and he doesn’t know why. But it’s very important for us to keep him with his feet on the ground”, says his mother.

“If he can do those things, fine, but he sees it as, ‘Yes, I can read, but my friend can run faster than me,’ because we all have our individual talents.”