12-year-old girl graduates high school after learning to read at 3

E’leese Shelton’s mother revealed that she spotted her daughter’s brilliance when she was only two. Shelton, currently 12 years old, completed her high school education at Tallavana Christian School last Thursday, having begun reading at age 3 and doing math at age 4.

Her proud mother, Danrell Shelton, told WCTV that when her daughter was only a toddler, “I got her a LeapFrog tablet, and we didn’t know that she was self-taught until it was telling her to do the letters, uppercase, lowercase letters, and we didn’t realize that she knew all of it. I did not teach her any of it. She just had the LeapFrog and she knew it.”

Meanwhile, the adolescent attributes her “surreal” accomplishment to her parents, friends, and church community, whom she refers to as her support system.

According to the publication, academic prowess runs in the family, since her brother, E’ven Shelton, who is ten years her senior, graduated from high school at the age of 16. According to their father, Fred Shelton, the siblings have always been competitive. He noted, “She told him that she was going to outdo him. So she stuck to her word.”

Nonetheless, E’ven voiced his joy at watching his sister outperform him, adding, “The best thing you could hope for for somebody you love is for them to do something better than you. That’s just what we hope for the next generation.”

The young scholar expressed her ambitions to attend TCC, transfer to FSU, and become a pediatrician.

After college, she aspires to begin medical school at 16 or 17. She said she feels up to the task, even if she will be among the youngest to do so.

“I feel excited to go on and embrace that journey,” Shelton declared.