Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Mvg thro EPGY math...what happens it gets hard?

So, I joined an EPGY group (thanks ohmathmom!!)

And DD is blasting through it. I started her in K, as she is 5. she has never used a computer, so although the work is far too easy, I figured it was good practice to learn mousing skills.

I figure, based on work we have done at home, she will start to struggle at 2nd-3rd grade level.

What happens to kids when it starts getting hard? She is just a baby, so we have not ever tried to teach her anything progressive, and I think we will hit a limit where her brain is just not mature enough for the concepts. I am not sure where that is, of course (she maxed out the Wppsi last month in language and a few other areas).

She tends to get very very stressed out when she finds something difficult, so I expect we will hit that limit first, but I was just curious what others experiences were with young children like this.

If you teach them something like math, where the skills are progressive...do they hit a point where they simply cannot go any further, and you must wait for their brains to develop? Or, can they just keep learning?

I guess i have not read anything about intellectual development like this...

Thanks!

EPGY will get progressively more difficult and the higher she scores the faster she will progress. My DD 10 has not hit a point where she can't progress, but she's finally challenged. That's why we started EPGY. She routinely brought home 100% test scores in math and wasn't learning how to deal with the challenge of learning something new and difficult. I wanted her to be challenged to help her overcome her perfectionism and anxiety.

Let your DD blast along for awhile to get used to the program. If she starts to get bored, consider having her take the placement test or increasing the grade level. You can also request the curriculum be switched from reinforcement to gifted to move even more quickly, with less instruction, and more challenging problems. EPGY recommends that students complete one grade level before switching to the gifted curriculum.

I have a handout I made about getting started with EPGY that discusses these options. As an SSA (School Support Associate), I can make changes to how the course runs for students in my section, but parents have to contact me at the e-mail address for me on the student's log in page. EPGY doesn't not give SSAs any contact information for students, so we can't reach out to parents of new students; you have to contact your SSA. I can't post the handout here or attach it to a PM, so if anyone who is not in my learning group would like a copy of the handout, PM me with your e-mail address, and I'll be happy to send it to you.

Thank you both, that helps so much!

I have another math program coming, with lots of manipulatives, and we have a montessori background, so once we get to the hard stuff, I will pull those out and start moving laterally.

I just really have no concept of what normal brains look like. It seems to me that she can learn anything, and I do not understand why kids are not taught so much more in school than they are...but that must be because my kid is not normal, and I am totally clueless.

I know she can do all basic math...and understands abstracts, so I jsut really dont see where she will stop. I suspect it will be a patience/time issue for her...ie, she will get bored or frustrated with the length of time it takes to work a problem with too many steps. She is an impatient child. I expect THAT will get better as she ages, and I dont really care if she is doing calculus at age 6. sheesh.

Boy howdy, this is all such uncharted territory. kids are amazing.

Thank you!

This is a great question. I don't have the answers, but we are in the same place. DS5, since starting ixl 6 months ago has moved through over half of third grade. Recently, a plateau has been hit where he doesn't want to do any problems that require writing stuff down, multiple steps, or things that require more than a minute to think through. He has suddenly started saying he hates math, and that he is terrible at it. I don't want to completely back off, because I don't want him getting the idea, if he says he hates something he can just quit. But I do think I need to change approach for awhile. I REALLY like Portia's thinking of just going laterally for awhile - then when they are ready, it all just comes together. For us, I think this will take the form of doing less structured math - reading through math books (Murderous Maths, Number Devil, Life of Fred, code books...are there others?) and then keep working on the writing, so that longer problems don't seem so arduous. And even though it seems he has been stuck in the same place for awhile, I have seen improvement - his writing has come a long way, and he has had to fight through a few concepts (rounding and estimating was a really challenging idea for him - why would you do that?). I think the big problem is that when things have come so fast to them for so long, anything that takes longer than a snap of a finger all the sudden seems tortuous. And you really do need to wait to develop a little more patience, and a little more grit.

But as Portia said, going laterally is a great way to build strong foundations. Reading had the same structure. For a long time he could read anything, but his plateau was that he wouldn't try a chapter book. Once he found the confidence, the sky was the limit. In the meantime (between 3.5-5) where he did read any word shown him, and read tons (just not in the straight-through format of a chapter book)we went laterally without knowing it. He just had tons of books that were more atlas/dictionary/thesaurus type of layout - things that didn't have to be read sequentially. That built his ability to take off reading chapter books when he developmentally was ready.

The cool thing about this lateral learning, is that once they are ready to pass the hump, they just fly to the next hump. I guess it is cool - actually it is going to make teaching this kid difficult!

- "Great Source" math books, e. g.:
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Source-Math-Know-Mathematics/dp/0669535966
- AOPS Beast academy (only grade 3 is available)
http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Store/beastacademy.php

We only ever ran into two of these strange/quirky things that I'd call developmentally-related holes in ability (as opposed to gaps in knowledge or exposure).


When DD was about 4, she understood negative numbers and subtraction in an abstract/symbolic sense perfectly well-- but COULD NOT understand methods using a number line (effectively a geometric method). Six months later, she enjoyed games like this enormously and was able to use the concepts and extend them.

Second thing is that when she was three-ish, she COULD NOT understand pattern sequencing and predicting the next item in a sequence. Really-- poor thing, the Reader Rabbit Math games that she would play, she was so frustrated by her complete and total inability to grasp that concept. I remember her CRYING over Reader Rabbit 1st grade math. Four months later, she-- without any real intervention-- found it EASY.


I also concur that with HG+ children who are mastery-oriented, you see a quantum type of behavior in their learning. Well, at least with my DD, we always have. It's very much Goldilocks who suddenly drinks one of Alice's Wonderland potions and finds that NOOOOO, actually-- Papa Bear's things fit her just fine, tyvm. Even though yesterday the chair was too big, the porridge too hot, the math too hard... that was then.

I can't, I can't, I can't... *BANG* Mastery. (and then it's I don't need to, I know how, why are you bugging me and wasting my time on stuff I know..) )

I kinda wish we had tried some home learning with DD before now...we had her in montessori school, where she learned nothing, and avoided all work...(she did the fun stuff...art, art, and more art) and at home we were total unschoolers. We have alwasy talked to her about anything she wanted to know, but never "taught" her anything, so I had no idea what she could do until now, when I am homeschooling her for the first time.

Thanks for sharing your experiences!

cdc3030 and Phey,
You can find plenty of math resources in the Family Math Enrichment Resource Book, including books, toys and games, and web sources. It's free to download as a pdf.

https://sites.google.com/site/polan...o-math-enrichment-family-resource-book-1

You'll also find loads of resources at Hoagie's gifted and, of course, through Davidson's database:

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/resources.htm

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/browse_by_topic_resources.aspx

As with most GT kids, it's important to emphasis to them that being a bit frustrated is the time when the greatest learning is occurs and it's a natural feeling to feel frustrated when something "hard" to do is in front of them. Getting through that realization may be one of the most difficult things GT kids go through.

It's GOOD for GT kids to experience that early and become accustomed to the thought pattern rather than running into it the first time somewhere in their Soph. year of college....when it's an axe between the eyes and a very rude wake up call without family around to help them deal with it.