Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Need some guidance re: Life of Fred

I don't feel jumped on! Gifted people like to argue, as I'm sure we are all aware. Here's a bit about me:

http://teachingmybabytoread.blog.com/about/

I grew up in the Seminar program in San Diego CA, for hg/eg/pg kids, and my six year old is about to start 1st grade in our district's GATE program. I don't think it will be as good as the Seminar program, but I'm just thankful our district has anything for gifted children at all.

My concern with Life of Fred Fractions is that while it is fun and entertaining, it mainly teaches with algorithms. I would not just hand the book over to a child like the author intends, UNLESS that child had already learned about fractions in a meaningful, conceptual way.

Here are a couple of examples about how I taught my son fractions in a meaningful and real way, while we were concurrently reading Life of Fred Fractions:

http://teachingmybabytoread.blog.com/2011/06/07/outside-fraction-lesson/

http://teachingmybabytoread.blog.com/2011/06/10/peanut-buttering-reducing-fractions/

As for what I want to get out of this board? I really like hearing from and sharing ideas with other parents on the Well Trained Mind message board, but it is nice to find a forum that specifically deals with gifted issues.

This is the kind of discussion I'd love to have irl with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.

I like the ideas of constructivism, but I also agree that sometimes children can feel like we are holding all these answers and we just won't give those answers to them. I also remember too many teacher trainings where we had to do an exercise as if we were students when I could already 'see' how it worked in my head, and I imagine children could easily feel the same way.

In my home education program, I try to introduce new concepts concretely, but try to be willing to let go of the concrete pretty quickly if it becomes necessary. I sometimes think my oldest DS was just sent to 'break me' so I wouldn't cling to any particular method too tightly. Sometimes it would be lovely to have that certainty back.

Lol, now if I argue with that sweeping generalisation I get into logical trouble, don't I? Actually I only like to argue about some things, in some ways, with some people, sometimes. But yes, as generalisations go...

Yes, I browsed your blog. Can I ask why you decided to teach your children so systematically from so young? [Maybe you've written about it, I didn't read every entry.] I thought and read about such decisions a lot, and came to the opposite conclusion to you: I decided not to teach my baby to read, for example, and did no more than answer his questions in maths before he started school. Yet as we were recently discussing, he was starting to read before he could talk and was spelling-obsessed by 2.5: I know exactly what GeoMamma means:

Similarly, I'm a bit bemused by the idea of teaching an understanding of fractions (though I'm sure teachers have to be able to do it!) I don't remember teaching DS, but he learned anyway. The one thing I do remember was that as he was interested in fractions we gave him a set of magnetic fraction tiles in his Christmas stocking just after he turned 5. I have a piece of his writing that he did in school shortly afterwards. It says
I treasure that

I fully agree with jenbrdsly about Life of Fred being algorithm driven. I have used the Fractions, Decimals, and the first Prealgebra book with my son as a supplement and I was horrified to see that the author very rarely develops concepts. For example, when teaching fraction multiplication, the *only* instruction in the entire book was simply to multiply the numerators and denominators. That's it. No discussion of why one might want to multiply fractions. No discussion of why you can multiply denominators together but you can't add them together. Nothing. I would never use Fred for primary instruction.

As for constructivism--I agree that math instruction should be grounded in developing conceptual understanding (this is why I love the Singapore series). However, I don't think it is necessary for a child to "discover" every last concept and algorithm for himself. One can "construct" knowledge without "discovering" it.

ok, so that's the difference between unschooling and constructivism; a constructivist CAN choose to teach a child something, you just don't spoon feed them you put it on their plate and give them the tools. An unschooler would wait for them to ask for it before you offered it to them.

Sure! My husband and I both went to Stanford University, where we both felt just average. What we noticed, were that the kids there from academically advantaged homes (children of alumni, children of alumni from ivy league schools, children of Phds, kids who had gone to prep school etc) found Stanford much easier than we did. It wasn't necessarily that they were so much smarter (although a lot of them were), but many of them were just better prepared.

My own parents who had gone to state college, did everything they knew how to do to prepare me for college. But what they knew, and the parents of some of these other kids knew, was really different.

I believe in making learning fun. I believe in spending a lot of one-on-one time with my kids, and yes, I believe in helping them accomplish as much as they can from an early age. Here is how I start teaching reading at 18 months: http://teachingmybabytoread.blog.com/where-to-start/

Yes! Constructivism is very different than unschooling. A Constructivist teacher provides lots and lots of facilitated activities for a child to conceptually understand concepts.

First, I need to admit that I haven't read the entire thread.

Yes, constructivism is very different from unschooling. Once a child demonstrates interest in a topic, an unschooler may or may not choose a constructivist approach to helping that child learn. An unschooler may choose a very traditional approach and still be unschooling.

As for the facilitated activities that help a child understand concepts, those activities do not need to be hands on. In fact, I would argue that as you move away from lower level math, it is preferable that they *not* be hands on, as you are trying to develop a more abstract approach to math.

On the general topic of LoF, I think the interview of the author at

http://www.homeschoolchristian.com/allabout/interviews/interviewschmidt.php
Life of Fred - A Living Approach to Math
An Interview with Stanley F. Schmidt, Ph.D.
by Martha Robinson

is interesting.

That's curious; some of my core decisions about educating my son are driven from my own experience of feeling I wasn't as well prepared for university as I could have been, but my decisions have gone a completely different way. In my case, the problem, as I see it, was that I hadn't been challenged enough at school - instead of giving me harder tasks (especially in maths), those around me had encouraged my perfectionism. So I went to university with an absolutely rock solid basis of school-level material, but when I finally got to a level where some of the work wasn't easy for me, I had no idea how to deal with that situation and felt the universe was broken! Took me years to get back on an even keel. It would have been far better for me if I'd gone to university with some gaps in the prerequisite knowledge but with experience of getting through somehow when I didn't understand something. I determined that my DS should always have problems that were hard for him, including things he couldn't do, no matter how good he was at something, and not too much direction; I want him to struggle a bit and to know that that's OK. Before he started school I was very happy he should work at whatever he was interested in in the way that preschoolers do; I stepped in to influence his maths when he started to complain that what they did at school was boring. In fact this was part of why I positively decided not to teach him to read (even though I knew my mother had taught me) - when he was a baby, I had a vision of this being his first experience of struggling with something and getting there with effort, and that seemed good. Of course in the event, he doesn't remember not being able to read, but I tried!

The bottom line is surely that we do what feels right in our families, influenced by our experiences and whatever else we find to assimilate. One of the things I find interesting about this place is the different decisions people make.