Math Prodigy-Please Help

[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.

THis is what most slightly above average children deal with in MCPS. Year after year of boredom being forced to go over the same things. There is no public solution to this problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First off, who did the assessment? His rural preschool? They are very unlikely able to make any sort of giftedness/advanced assessment. I’d take that with a grain of salt. Kids from rural areas often look very gifted in comparison to their peers…once they are surrounded with peers from educated areas, they look closer to average.

If he went to a psychologist for testing, I don’t get mom’s hand waving about not having time to deal with him and being upset about the results…clearly she had time to find a testing place and do the tests.

Also, she has clearly worked with this kid or had him tutored. A non-reading three year old can’t be born competent in fifth grade math because (even if a genius), he wouldn’t know the jargon or how to express the concepts. So, she should just keep doing what she’s been doing.

Finally, the concept that genius kids are becoming troublemakers because they are bored is utter baloney. When your kids reach MS and HS, you will realize that the troublemakers have below average intelligence across the board.

This.

I would add, testing is meaningless to prove outlier talent. It’s also important to know how he got to master 5th grade math, which would include arithmetic, fractions, proportions, percents, powers etc.

Focus on finding work that is challenging and engaging. From my experience with my own child, the public school will be useless, and the same can be said about most private schools as well. In a rural area that’s a certainty. AOPS was mentioned, and I second that. Try to find how he best learns, is it through a tutor or independently? Then help him however you can, financially or through an adult that will support his education.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a drama queen.

[Anonymous]

I want to know more about the testing performed to determine math level. It is possible that the child's mom misunderstood what the Grade Level Equivalent rating meant? It generally means that the child performed as well as the average 5th grader on material presented at the child's grade level (i.e. K or pre-K), and not that the child performed as well as 5th graders on a test covering 5th grade level materials.

For the child to be at a 5th grade level, the child would need to know decimals and decimal operations, fractions and fraction operations, long division, measurements and conversions, application of math to word problems, some amount of variables, and so on. There's no way a non reading child just plucked all of that out of thin air.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I want to know more about the testing performed to determine math level. It is possible that the child's mom misunderstood what the Grade Level Equivalent rating meant? It generally means that the child performed as well as the average 5th grader on material presented at the child's grade level (i.e. K or pre-K), and not that the child performed as well as 5th graders on a test covering 5th grade level materials.

For the child to be at a 5th grade level, the child would need to know decimals and decimal operations, fractions and fraction operations, long division, measurements and conversions, application of math to word problems, some amount of variables, and so on. There's no way a non reading child just plucked all of that out of thin air.

They could from apps and tv/videos but they aren't doing what OP thinks they are. They may know facts from apps/videos but that is memorization not use.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want to know more about the testing performed to determine math level. It is possible that the child's mom misunderstood what the Grade Level Equivalent rating meant? It generally means that the child performed as well as the average 5th grader on material presented at the child's grade level (i.e. K or pre-K), and not that the child performed as well as 5th graders on a test covering 5th grade level materials.

For the child to be at a 5th grade level, the child would need to know decimals and decimal operations, fractions and fraction operations, long division, measurements and conversions, application of math to word problems, some amount of variables, and so on. There's no way a non reading child just plucked all of that out of thin air.

They could from apps and tv/videos but they aren't doing what OP thinks they are. They may know facts from apps/videos but that is memorization not use.

It’s possible the child is gifted or at least has some inclination towards math. From one test alone I wouldn’t conclude he is a prodigy and it’s not even clear what it even means to be at 5th grade level. I hear a lot of stories on how kids discover multiplication in their own in preschool etc. while it’s a good sign, it depends, it could be information memorized from other sources. If it was out of the blue, a total surprise that he is good at math, and the parents were completely unaware, then find a good curriculum to follow and review these concepts, make sure there’s a solid understanding and go from there. I’d find the story really strange and hard to believe, but I want to give the op the benefit of the doubt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I want to know more about the testing performed to determine math level. It is possible that the child's mom misunderstood what the Grade Level Equivalent rating meant? It generally means that the child performed as well as the average 5th grader on material presented at the child's grade level (i.e. K or pre-K), and not that the child performed as well as 5th graders on a test covering 5th grade level materials.

For the child to be at a 5th grade level, the child would need to know decimals and decimal operations, fractions and fraction operations, long division, measurements and conversions, application of math to word problems, some amount of variables, and so on. There's no way a non reading child just plucked all of that out of thin air.

Dollars to donuts, the “testing” consisted of the kid saying 2x2 is 4 and his backwoods preschool teacher with a GED saying “golly gee, that there is fifth grade math.

[Anonymous]

Here’s what I would do if I were a busy mom not knowing much about math:
1) get him a set of books, at least one, say, Beast academy. Send them with him to preschool and ask them to help with it if needed but mostly just let him have at it
2) would try online one on one tutoring, there are options on Outschool that aren’t crazy expensive. That teacher could hopefully advise on further steps as well.

[Anonymous]

OP, you and your sister need to relax. A 3 year old who is good a math might not be a "prodigy." I could read my sibling's middle school books as a kindergartner, but that didn't mean I was a prodigy or even particularly gifted.
Your sister's reaction seems more like grief--he hasn't been diagnosed with a terrible disease or disability. Buy some math games, teach him chess or a musical instrument (people who are good at math are often also good at learning music), and stress other skills like reading, social development etc so his talents are balanced.