We’re parents of Britain’s smartest toddler – he taught HIMSELF to read at age two and has IQ of 139

Britain’s smartest toddler taught herself to read at the age of two and has an IQ of 139.

Teddy Hobbs, now four, became the youngest Mensa member in the country as a toddler with skills like the ability to count to 100 in six other languages.

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The exclusive organization for the intellectual “elite” received the youngster at the age of three years and nine months.

Mensa is an international group for high IQ individuals founded in 1947 and only accepts members above the 98th percentile of IQ worldwide.

He scored 139 out of 160 on the Stanford Binet test, shocking his parents who had no idea how smart he was.

The child genius was born through IVF to proud parents Beth and Will Hobbs of Portishead, Somerset, who only had their son screened before he started school.

Beth, 31, said: “We did an IQ test where we basically told him he was 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 little 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.”

Teddy can now even read Harry Potter books if his parents allow him to.

He even likes to relax – with a word search.

Beth says that Teddy’s genius is both a blessing and a curse, as he shows little interest in some of the more “normal” things a young boy might enjoy, like games and television.

She said: “It comes with his challenges, my friends can say ‘oh, should we have some cake’ and their kids won’t know what they’re saying, but Teddy will spell it 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.

“His idea of ​​fun is that he likes to sit down and do his multiplication tables, and at one point he got so excited about fractures that he got a nosebleed.

“That seems to be his quirk and we’re going to roll with it, but we’re trying really hard not to make a mess of it.”

The pair say they are trying to keep him “humble” given his genius to prevent him from developing any sort of “superiority complex”.

At the moment, however, he seems unaware of his abilities compared to other children his age.

Beth added, “We’re getting to the point now in kindergarten where they’re starting to do a more formal curriculum.

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

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

Beth says Teddy’s interest in conversation probably exceeds what her friends talk to their four-year-olds about.

She said: “His social and developmental skills are really our top priority; we’ve spent a lot of time getting these kids – so they must be good citizens.

“He has some ideas that he wants to be a doctor one day because he and his friend love to play doctors in kindergarten, but if you ask him what he wants to be he’ll just say he wants to focus on being a teddy bear to be.”