At two years old, most children are just about learning to string a few words together – but one brainy tot from Essex is head and shoulders above most children his age.
Bear King, from Southend-on-Sea, started to talk at four months and began to read at aged one, his parents have claimed.
According to his proud mother and father, he then learnt the alphabet – both forwards and backwards – and before he turned two, could easily count to 100 and read full sentences.
Now he is going one step further and astonishing his parents by teaching himself Mandarin from YouTube.
Tiny Bear stunned his mum Ronnie Havis, 24, when he started to talk aged just four months.
Bear learned to read aged just one, and is now teaching himself Mandarin, amazing his two parents
And now, at two-and-a-half, Ronnie believes Bear can read at the level of a six-year-old.
Ronnie, a full-time mother, who lives with her bricklayer partner Ryan, said: ‘I dread to think what we’ll have to wrap our heads around by the time he’s in school.’
She added: ‘We’ve encouraged it from a really early age, and have always made sure his room was filled with educational posters and toys, but we really don’t know where it has come from.
‘I’ve had to teach myself phonics. It’s not the same as when I was at school, Bear corrects my pronunciation.
‘I’ll point out a picture of a bird to him in a book and he’ll say, “No, mummy, that’s a quail”.’
‘He’s obsessed with animals and nature, and now he’s starting to name them all in Chinese. It’s hard to keep up.’
Bear King stunned his mother Ronnie Havis, 24, when he started to talk aged just four months, and then learned the alphabet
Bear said the word mama at just four months old and is now judged to be as brainy as a six year old
Ronnie claims Bear spoke his first word, ‘mama’, at just four months old – and was also sitting up unaided at that time.
She said her advanced son took his first steps at around eight months – which is about four months earlier than the average baby.
Bear isn’t the only intelligent tot to be making headlines, after an 11-year-old child prodigy from Mexico City, who has an IQ higher than Albert Einstein, began studying for a master’s degree in engineering.
Adhara Pérez Sánchez grew up in the low-income neighborhood of Tláhauc and was often bullied in school for being autistic.
She was diagnosed with the developmental disability at the age of three after her speech significantly regressed. She was found rocking herself in her high chair, and she began to crawl very quickly.
She finished elementary school at the age of five, according to Goalcast, then finished middle and high school a year later.
The 11-year-old has also already received a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering from CNCI University and is currently studying a master’s program in mathematics at the Technological University of Mexico, according to Marie Claire Mexico.
She hopes to one day catch the sights of NASA and dreams of exploring Mars. She is often spotted wearing gear with the space company’s logo on it on her Instagram, with a broad smile on her face.
‘My name is a star from the Canis Major constellation,’ she said, according to Goalcast. ‘Wezen is right above Adhara. Aludra is right below Adhara.
‘I want to go to space and colonize Mars,’ she continued. ‘If you don’t like where you are, imagine where you want to be. I see myself at NASA, so it’s worth a try.’
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