Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Big ideas= Easy, Details=Lost

While I realize that it can be perfectly normal for a gifted child to have areas of relative weakness, I am still surprised how much weaker my DD's math facts are compared to just about any other skill. She understood math concepts at the third grade level when tested in preschool at 4 years 11 months, and was in the 99th percentile, and I am sure she does better on math facts than most kids her age, but I do worry that this relative weakness may hold her back. Sometimes she seems to just trance out when doing simple math.

I was put ahead in math and on a math team (though was always a much higher verbal score type of person), but have never been quick with math facts. I'm wondering how common this is and the best way to help her make math facts automatic and quick. She still is working on immediate recall of addition and subtraction facts. She knows some multiplication and division too, but I'd like to make sure her lower facts are very solid so that they don't use any weakness against her next year when her reasoning ability and understanding is beyond this stumbling block.

I also find that she makes minor detail errors with punctuation and capitalization in her writing. She loves to write and is very creative, and her teacher says her handwriting is very good, but her spelling and form aren't at the same level. She seems to forget those small details, but then again, there are kids in her class who can't write a sentence and are using a mix of capital and lower case letters throughout and I am expecting proper use of capitals and everything else lowercase with correct punctuation (including quotation marks etc.). Am I expecting too much? Her verbal has always tested very high so my expectations have always been high. I may just may be being picky. I am talking about forgetting to capitalize the first letter in a sentence and sometimes forgetting a period. Occassionally she will sprinkle in a capital letter among the lowercase. She can spell basic words well, but sometimes is way off on bigger words like spelling the word "challenging".

Across the board, her concepts, thinking ability, humor, creativity, vocabulary, etc. are very advanced, but the details--math facts, writing structure (which she knows thoroughly but forgets to apply sometimes)and spelling--seems lower than expected. Her teacher has even noticed this with her spelling / writing details.

I have a hard time biting my tongue with invented spelling that seems way off when she has great phonemic awareness and near adult reading level. I am a big time perfectionist and don't want to be too critical.

Does this sound familar to anyone? Any suggestions? Do I just need to chill out? My fear is that her first grade teacher will be caught up in those things and then not see areas where she needs to be challenged. Her K teacher clearly knows she is bright and is a big fan of hers so that should work in her favor.