Hi,

New here, although I've been reading and appreciating these forums for the past several weeks! Hoping for some advice on this month's challenge.

DS ( just turned 7) has tested as PG, with exceptional math ability but overall quite balanced scores.

He's in second grade at a private parochial school, but in third grade for math. (Kindergarten was a great Montessori experience, we relocated and suffered through a very difficult private school first grade year and are so far, glad that he is happy and that we aren't getting weekly stresses from teachers, principal or son.)

However, math homework is a problem. Some of it is far too easy, but he typically does it without complaining. The problems are in two main areas. One is when the worksheet requires him to "explain how you got the answer." I'm hoping someone has a good way of coaching a kid who does the problems seemingly without thinking (I know he does think, but the speed is amazing.) on how to come up with an answer, preferably without crying and melting down. Or, do we need to talk about this with the teacher? I did hear something in a pre-start of school conference that troubled me, about how with this new curriculum "gifted" kids couldn't always answer how they did it... meaning the curriculum developers thought that was bad/the kids didn't know it and thus needed to be forced into doing so... I read conflicting information on this topic. He does have a solid foundation on relating concepts to manipulatives from his Montessori days, so it seems like backtracking at times to explain the process.

The other issue is that his math teacher has supposedly told him if something was "too hard" to just write that down. Bingo, instant out so he can stop doing homework and read or play... until we figured out what was happening and ruined his glorious plans. It appears that the "too hard" pages may be material he's not covered before. I've been giving him brief explanations and he can always do the work, other than the resistance to any questions that ask him to explain his work. He doesn't particularly like writing and his handwriting is sloppy. Not sure if that's connected or not to the resistance.

He told me last night that the pages he's been writing "too hard" on are assignments only he gets, that the other kids only get the ones he's been doing (he developed a keen sense last year of when he was getting additional, vs. appropriately different, work, so I tend to believe him). We're going to meet with his second-grade teacher and are going to get a connection to the math teacher to get to the bottom of this...