Math Prodigy-Please Help

[Anonymous]

My 3 y.o. cousin is a delightful, normal little boy. However, he has a rabid interest in math. His mother broke down crying when he tested at a 5th-grade math level and she is asking for help. They live in a remote area where, other than a small college, there will be few academic services for him, public or private. If you have been in a similar position, I would love to hear any tips for dealing with his education. TIA

[Anonymous]

First, I think more info is needed. Is he in preschool? Is he happy or frustrated?

Second, at 3 skills are all over the place. I'm not saying this kid couldn't be a profoundly gifted kid, but he could also not be by the time he gets to school age.

Why did your cousin's mom break down, exactly?

[Anonymous]

A good place to start is Hoagies Gifted page – there is a lot of information for all age ranges: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First, I think more info is needed. Is he in preschool? Is he happy or frustrated?

Second, at 3 skills are all over the place. I'm not saying this kid couldn't be a profoundly gifted kid, but he could also not be by the time he gets to school age.

Why did your cousin's mom break down, exactly?

He is almost 4 and just started 1/2 day preschool. His mom already has a lot going on in her life ,and this is one more challenge she didn't need. She is upset because the school basically told her that there is nothing they can do for him. Even if his math skills came to an abrupt stop today, he is facing years of sitting through math instruction for concepts he has already mastered. I have seen this kid rattle off multiplication facts, and he seems to have deeper understanding beyond rote skills. If he is already at a 5th grade level, he will be wasting time and not learning anything new in elementary school regardless of whether he gets a label of "profoundly gifted" or not. He's fine now, but if (when) he gets bored, he may also risk becoming a behavioral problem. I think she needs practical advice on two fronts 1) how to keep him from getting bored in school, and 2) how to feed his current passion for math and educate him on his level.

[Anonymous]

I had an intern who is a prodigy in math. She is currently at John Hopkins on a full scholarship although she was also accepted into MIT with scholarship.
We once talked about her education and how she got so good a math within the public school system. In elementary school she had a math tutor who was Russian and taught her math the Russian way. She started taking advanced math in middle school and in high school she was allowed to have an alternative schedule that let her take math classes at the local community college.

[Anonymous]

I'm no expert, my son is advanced, but not to this degree. From what I've read around these parts, one strategy is to go deeper, not faster. So explore ways to use math in interesting ways beyond what's taught in class. I like the Beast Academy books, we used those for my Ker last year when he was at home, but it was tough because he couldn't read yet. She'll probably have to figure out ways to supplement his education at home, but it is possible these days with remote options. I would also suggest seeing if there is a montessori school available (though that's probably a long-shot).

Its okay for kids to be bored in one subject, learning how to get through boring things is a valuable skill to learn at an early age. If he's bored in all other subjects, that's a different matter I suppose.

The other suggestions I've seen repeatedly are to get such children involved in other activities that use different parts of their brain such as a second language, music, and chess.

[Anonymous]

He might be bored in school. Most advanced kids are. There are lots of informal ways to challenge him or keep him engaged. He can help other students, he can do special projects. A lot of teachers have a challenging problem for kids to do when they finish their in-class assignments, often something not directly related to the lesson -- perhaps a spatial or logical challenge. There are lots of online resources, like Khan Academy, that she can access. There are books of logic and math puzzles, there are books about coding, etc. Lots of ways to stretch a kid with a gift for math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had an intern who is a prodigy in math. She is currently at John Hopkins on a full scholarship although she was also accepted into MIT with scholarship.
We once talked about her education and how she got so good a math within the public school system. In elementary school she had a math tutor who was Russian and taught her math the Russian way. She started taking advanced math in middle school and in high school she was allowed to have an alternative schedule that let her take math classes at the local community college.

I just want to add that the way they teach math in elementary school is different from the way we learned 20 years ago. There are different ways to solve a math problem.
My son is advanced but not a prodigy. He has math books he works on that are not the school's curriculum. So in school he learns an alternative way to solve the problem that he's already encountered

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First, I think more info is needed. Is he in preschool? Is he happy or frustrated?

Second, at 3 skills are all over the place. I'm not saying this kid couldn't be a profoundly gifted kid, but he could also not be by the time he gets to school age.

Why did your cousin's mom break down, exactly?

He is almost 4 and just started 1/2 day preschool. His mom already has a lot going on in her life ,and this is one more challenge she didn't need. She is upset because the school basically told her that there is nothing they can do for him. Even if his math skills came to an abrupt stop today, he is facing years of sitting through math instruction for concepts he has already mastered. I have seen this kid rattle off multiplication facts, and he seems to have deeper understanding beyond rote skills. If he is already at a 5th grade level, he will be wasting time and not learning anything new in elementary school regardless of whether he gets a label of "profoundly gifted" or not. He's fine now, but if (when) he gets bored, he may also risk becoming a behavioral problem. I think she needs practical advice on two fronts 1) how to keep him from getting bored in school, and 2) how to feed his current passion for math and educate him on his level.

So first, I'd take a deep breath. At the moment he doesn't need to be getting challenged in Math as he's in preschool. He can be challenged by making friends, working or art, learning to share, imaginative play etc. He's a long way from having to sit through boring math classes. Second, I'd have his mom approach his local elementary school. I would have her meet with them to disucss testing him to see if he can start kindergartern in the fall. Third, I would find someone - maybe a high schooler- who likes math and kids and who can be a mother's helper a few days a week and who can do fun math games with him or math puzzles out of a resources book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First, I think more info is needed. Is he in preschool? Is he happy or frustrated?

Second, at 3 skills are all over the place. I'm not saying this kid couldn't be a profoundly gifted kid, but he could also not be by the time he gets to school age.

Why did your cousin's mom break down, exactly?

He is almost 4 and just started 1/2 day preschool. His mom already has a lot going on in her life ,and this is one more challenge she didn't need. She is upset because the school basically told her that there is nothing they can do for him. Even if his math skills came to an abrupt stop today, he is facing years of sitting through math instruction for concepts he has already mastered. I have seen this kid rattle off multiplication facts, and he seems to have deeper understanding beyond rote skills. If he is already at a 5th grade level, he will be wasting time and not learning anything new in elementary school regardless of whether he gets a label of "profoundly gifted" or not. He's fine now, but if (when) he gets bored, he may also risk becoming a behavioral problem. I think she needs practical advice on two fronts 1) how to keep him from getting bored in school, and 2) how to feed his current passion for math and educate him on his level.

So first, I'd take a deep breath. At the moment he doesn't need to be getting challenged in Math as he's in preschool. He can be challenged by making friends, working or art, learning to share, imaginative play etc. He's a long way from having to sit through boring math classes. Second, I'd have his mom approach his local elementary school. I would have her meet with them to disucss testing him to see if he can start kindergartern in the fall. Third, I would find someone - maybe a high schooler- who likes math and kids and who can be a mother's helper a few days a week and who can do fun math games with him or math puzzles out of a resources book.

PP here. Another option is to see if there is a montessori school around him which could be a better fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First, I think more info is needed. Is he in preschool? Is he happy or frustrated?

Second, at 3 skills are all over the place. I'm not saying this kid couldn't be a profoundly gifted kid, but he could also not be by the time he gets to school age.

Why did your cousin's mom break down, exactly?

He is almost 4 and just started 1/2 day preschool. His mom already has a lot going on in her life ,and this is one more challenge she didn't need. She is upset because the school basically told her that there is nothing they can do for him. Even if his math skills came to an abrupt stop today, he is facing years of sitting through math instruction for concepts he has already mastered. I have seen this kid rattle off multiplication facts, and he seems to have deeper understanding beyond rote skills. If he is already at a 5th grade level, he will be wasting time and not learning anything new in elementary school regardless of whether he gets a label of "profoundly gifted" or not. He's fine now, but if (when) he gets bored, he may also risk becoming a behavioral problem. I think she needs practical advice on two fronts 1) how to keep him from getting bored in school, and 2) how to feed his current passion for math and educate him on his level.

So, this first point, about academic boredom leading to behavior problems, is often overstated. Who told her this? You can tell her that they are incorrect. Kids who are just bored with no other disorder going on do not develop serious behavior problems from being bored in school. If she is already overwhelmed you can put her at ease by letting her know this is not really a concern.

Many homeschooled children are taught above grade level skills. She should join some Facebook groups, or reach out in her own community, to see what homeschoolers would recommend for enrichment at that age and beyond. As someone else recommended, things like chess, and logic strategy games, are probably a good idea, along with just some run of the mill math games.

Without knowing about how he was tested, it's really hard to say how truly skilled he is. In the future this may not be as big of a problem as she thinks it is.

[Anonymous]

AoPS is great for advanced math - extremely difficult. A tutor who will teach "non school" math-- competition math, interesting word problems, etc.

I am not trying to be a wet blanket, because I do believe and have seen actual math geniuses, but a kid at three who is extremely advanced in math can look even more extreme. Don't take that to mean that he isn't gifted in math (I have my own kid who tested completely off the charts in early elementary), but it doesn't *really* show until they are quickly mastering advanced concepts (honors Algebra, AP calc, etc).

Math tutors (who are pursuing advanced math degrees themselves are a great choice) and math competitions are the way to go - the math problems and problem solving techniques are interesting and teach critical thinking skills and methods far above what they will learn in a classroom.

[Anonymous]

Math games, puzzles (math and logic), musical instrument (music and math have a lot of overlap). I second the recommendation that he attend Montessori for his early education. When he is going into a standard grade school, the family can meet with the principal and find out what the options are. They will want him tested and then various approaches can be discussed, whether single subject acceleration for math (where he goes to a higher grade classroom), math enrichment so he can go deeper than the regular class instruction, math competitions (there are many for elementary students), etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A good place to start is Hoagies Gifted page – there is a lot of information for all age ranges: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org

This. It’s a wealth of information and resources from sources that understand this level of giftedness.

[Anonymous]

Other resources are the Davidson Young scholars program (starting at a slightly older age) and the Russian School of Math. In this situation I might look around for an older student who has been successful in the Art of Problem Solving(AoPS) which was mentioned by another poster here. If you find one of those kids or just one who is very enthusiastic about math and advanced to tutor and provide additional enrichment and problems for the child that would go a long way for not much money. We had some literal geniuses tutor my kids for about $10 an hour because 12 year olds, no matter how smart, don't have a lot of other great employment options. The older kids parents were so grateful that they were able to use their special skills too.