I've had a puzzling experience this week. When ds was 4 (about 1 1/2 yrs ago), I discovered by accident that he could naturally skip count. I started skip counting by 3's and asked him whether he could continue. He did--skipped counted to 100 and then backward right through zero and into the negatives. He did the same thing skip counting 4's and 6's. (He had more hesitation and sticking points on 7's and 8's, but still very very very well.) He had no prior exposure to this and couldn't do the addition to figure out the answers. He didn't even pause between numbers--just rattled them off. It wasn't just that day, he could do it any time. When I asked him how he knew what # came next, he said, "I could see a pattern in the numbers." I would not consider him a kid who is intuitive about math, but he's an absolute whiz for patterns, logic, analogies, associations, etc.
Fast forward to now--We're homeschooling and have been working on Singapore Math (he's finishing 2B). His addition/subtraction skills have improved by leaps and bounds. He's almost learned his basic multiplication facts. This week I asked him to skip count by 3's---long pauses, hesitation, a couple of wrong numbers, and he finally told me that it was too hard and he didn't want to continue.
What has happened? I thought his math skills were improving, but now I'm not sure what's happening. Maybe he's trying to think in terms of multiplication instead of just number patterns? Why would he lose his sense for number patterns? Am I doing something wrong? Any advice?
