Somerset toddler joins Mensa after teaching herself to read at the age of 2

A child genius who taught himself to read at the age of two has become Britain’s youngest Mensa member.

Teddy Hobbs can already read Harry Potter books and count to 100 in six other languages, including Mandarin, Welsh, French, Spanish and German.

The toddler, who was born through IVF, was accepted into the elite organization last year at the age of three years and nine months after scoring 139 on an IQ test.

Parents Beth and Will Hobbs, from Portishead, Somerset, had no idea how smart Teddy was and just had him assessed at random to prepare him for school in September.

Beth, 31, said: “We did an IQ test where we basically told him he’s going to sit with a lady for an hour and do some riddles and he thought it was the most wonderful thing.

“After he completed it, we were told by Mensa’s child counselor that he was eligible, so we figured he might as well go along.

‘We were a bit like ‘Excuse me?’. We knew he could do things his peers couldn’t, but I don’t think we really knew how good he was.

She added: “We’re not sure how he ended up like this, my husband and I are not linguists. We always joke that the embryologist must have thought of a needle or something to make him that way.”

Beth admitted that Teddy’s genius comes with his challenges as he shows little interest in games or television.

She said: “My friends are like, ‘Oh, shall we have cake?’ and their kids won’t know what they’re saying, but Teddy will spell it out right away and want some of it.

“You can’t get past him, he listens to everything. He will remember conversations you had with him last Christmas.

“When we had our daughter we bought him a tablet so we could focus on her but he was never very interested in playing games or anything like that.

“Instead, he prefers to use apps to learn how to count to 100 in Mandarin and other languages.

“His idea of ​​fun is to sit down and recite your multiplication tables.”

Despite his intelligence, Teddy’s parents try to keep him “humble” to prevent him from developing any “superiority complexes”.

The now four-year-old tot doesn’t seem to realize how gifted he is compared to other kids his age.

Beth added: “His friends can read a few letters of the alphabet while he can read Harry Potter.

“I remember taking him to daycare one day and saying I thought he taught himself to read and they didn’t really believe me at first.

“Then that day, they had a preschool teacher go up to him and talk to him, and they just called me back and said, ‘No, you’re right, Beth.’

“Obviously we’re not letting him read Harry Potter, we’re choosing more emotionally appropriate books, but he’s basically at the stage where he can read anything we put in front of him.”

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