British toddler who taught himself to read and write becomes UK's youngest Mensa member

Teddy Hobbs, from Somerset, England, has become the youngest member of the high-IQ club Mensa at the age of four. The child prodigy aced the Mensa test by scoring 139 out of 160.

Formed by two friends at Oxford College in 1946, Mensa was developed as a community for intelligent people based on IQ test scores.

Membership is reserved for the top 2% of the population, and those wishing to be admitted must take an official test. Over 130,000 people are members of Mensa in over 100 countries.

According to the Mensa website, its original aims were to "create a society that is non-political and free from all racial or religious distinctions."

Hobbs can count up to 100 in seven different languages, including Mandarin, Welsh, French, Spanish and German. He taught himself how to read while watching television and playing on his tablet at the age of two without the knowledge of his own parents. Now, he can even read full-length novels.

"He chooses a new topic of something to be interested in every couple of months or so, it seems. Sometimes it's numbers. It was times tables for a while – that was a very intense period – then countries and maps and learning to count in different languages," his mother Beth Hobbs told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

She said that he has begun to realise that his friends can't read and sometimes asks why that is so. "...he sees it as just 'OK, well I can read but my friend can run faster than me. We've all got our individual talents," she added.

Teddy took the test at the age of three years and seven months, after his parents asked health visitors to assess him before he starts school in September.

"We wanted some sort of assessment so we knew the level he was going to start school with," Beth told The Times. "Teddy was our first child and as he was conceived via IVF, we have nothing to compare him with."