the words for her. She cannot remember exactly when the letters one day separated into words. She was a very inquisitive child so there is no doubt that she learned to read because she was interested in learning to read. She remembers in her own words, "I had stared at them [words] all the evenings in my memory..."

Truly, Scout is wise beyond her years, and she and her father have adult-like conversations. Scout is more mature than many children her age. It could be due to the fact that she is raised mostly by a man. Her mother died when Scout was two. Scout has grown up in a house where her loving father is an intellectual. Her father is constantly reading to her. In reference to community affairs, Atticus talks to his children as if they were adults. He does not try to spare them the truth. He is up front with his children. He is a great teacher.

Also, Scout's housekeeper Calpurnia insists that Scout copy the alphabet in cursive. Calpurnia is like a mother figure in her life, and she disciplines Scout as if she were her own daughter. Scout tends to drive Calpurnia crazy on rainy days so she assigns a writing task to keep Scout busy. Calpurnia rewards Scout for copying a chapter out of the Bible. Scout blames Calpurnia for teaching her to read and write:

Calpurnia was to blame for this... She would set me a writing task by scrawling the alphabet firmly across the top of a tablet, then copying out a chapter of the Bible beneath. If I reproduced her penmanship satisfactorily, she rewarded me...

While Scout probably resented the task of copying chapters from the Bible, no doubt it helped her learn to read.

Scout "accidentally" learns to read by spending time with her father in the evenings. On these nights, she would sit in Atticus's lap and listen to him read out loud from the newspaper, watching while his finger traces under the printed lines. Staring at the words helps her to begin to distinguish one from another.

This becomes an issue on Scout's first day of first grade, when Miss Caroline discovers that Scout can indeed read. She makes the assumption that Atticus has taught his daughter this skill and feels disturbed that a man would take it upon himself to do so without being educated in the pedagogical theories of John Dewey, insisting that "reading should begin with a fresh mind." Scout gets a firm scolding from Miss Caroline, who is clearly new to teaching.

Near the end of chapter 3, Atticus says to the children that he never went to school.  He's discussing their situation with Miss Caroline.  He doesn't want Scout to upset her teacher by continuing to read at home, so he tells Scout to keep between the two of them. 

Atticus and his brother must have learned to read and write, like most of his generation at home, because both of them were able to go on to college to pursue their careers.  Atticus was admitted to the bar, and his brother Jack went on to study medicine.  So both were taught pretty well before going off to college.

In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, we first meet Scout when she is six years old. Though Scout has not yet started school, she already knows how to read. This fact is reported by Jem when he and Scout first meet Dill. Scout knows how to read because her father, Atticus, has read to her every night since she was an infant.

Yet, already knowing how to read puts Scout at a disadvantage. On Scout’s first day of school, her teacher, Ms. Caroline, makes it her mission to undo the "damage" Atticus has done by teaching a different way of reading than how Scout reads. At the end of the day, Scout tells Atticus she never wants to go to school again. Atticus makes a deal with his daughter: the two of them will continue to read together every night as long as Scout keeps going to school. Scout agrees to try.