Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion 3yo with great memory learning progression?

We have a 3yo (3y5m) son who seems to have a really good memory.

We first noticed it when he was 1 and we would started reading some board books off the top of our head and then he would find the book in the book rack and bring it to us.

Soon he was correcting us while reading if we missed a word, and then he would read from memory books like little blue truck and similar type books as we turned the pages.

So here we are now. Here is a list of things he's learned, but it mostly seems things that he has memorized. I don't know if anything requires any critical thinking.

-He can recognize uppercase and lowercase letters, including phonics. He will attempt to sound out words.
-He can count to 20 and knows basic colors in 2 foreign languages.
-Can count to over 100 in english (sometimes loses focus along the way, but capable), can count by 10's, and 5's.
-in the past two weeks he memorized Dolch Word list 1 and 2 here (http://www.theschoolbell.com/Links/Dolch/basic_lists/List1.html)
-He can do simple math if it adds up to 10 or less.
-He can identify all 50 states, all the continents, planets in solar system.

Is there some sort of progression in learning things that is a Best Practice. I feel if we sat down with him we could teach him to memorize almost anything. But I don't know how helpful it is to know all the bones in the body, capital of all the states, or things of the sort at this age.

Again so my questions is, what should we introduce to him that could actually be beneficial to him?

Hmm. At that age, with a similar child, we tried to expose him to a variety of topics and then fed whatever he seemed most interested in at the moment. So we might grab a variety of books (dinosaurs, cars, planets, dragons, etc.) from the library, and then he would let us know what interested him. We would then look for resources on that topic to share (games, puzzles, books, maps, etc.). I don't know if there is a best practice. Likely, someone has dreamt one up, but what worked for our family was simply to go where he wanted to go. Years later, he still remembers many of the facts and strings them together for comparison/contrast.

Many versions of best practice have been attempted in the past. Personally, I think they are all too rigid, and have insufficient respect for a) the natural learning instincts of human beings, especially children, and b) the wide variety of healthy individual development.

I would agree with ConnectingDots. Follow where his interests and delights lead him. If you gift him with a safe, beloved, and joyful childhood, he will have the best possible foundation for present and future learning.

I agree with the other posters. I think that if you follow his interests and he seems to be having fun learning, that that idea that learning is fun may just stick and create a really good frame of mind.

I sometimes bring up basic household tasks and lifeskills when these conversations come up. Little kids are capable of and enjoy contributing in a real way to their household. You can google ideas for this.

Yes! Had forgotten this -- we used a lot of Montessori ideas at that age and had small brooms/dustpans for him. He helped set the table and helped us with baking (measuring while we explained the process and the tools we used).

One more thing -- at that age, we started playing a lot of games that rely on a good memory. Blokus, Qwirkle, Rat a Tat Cat, traditional card games come to mind.

Thanks for your responses.

@ConnectingDots & @aeh

We are trying to see what he is interested in, that's how he ended he started to learn all the states. Grandparents live in a different state, and showed him a map of where they live, and what state it was, then a bunch of, "what state is this" questions, and he got them memorized.
My sister lives in a different country now he knows about a few dozen countries. Which then expanded to continents and to the solar system.

We have a trip to D.C. planned and explained how that was the Capitol of the US, and what a capitol was, and then he started the process of remembering the capitals of various states, but I kind of redirected from that, because I cant imagine how that could be helpful at his age.

Should I have continued to teach him the capitols?

That is why I was looking for some progression in general, I thought it would be better to direct him to things that might actually be helpful, or develop some critical thinking instead of memorization.

@howdy

We do have him help vacuum (little dirt devil), help with meals, put away dishes, rinse his dish. It is not a routine, but maybe we should start to add that to our plans.

@ConnectingDots
We are sending him to Montessori in September. We are using some montesorri based toys at home, like a number board that has helped him recognize and understand numbers.

I'll have to look into those games, currently in the board game rotation are candyland, chutes and ladders, boggle jr.

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He sounds delightful! As far as trying to teach some critical thinking along with the memorization, perhaps you are naturally doing a bit of this (I'm thinking of explaining the DC explanation). I probably would have pulled out our puzzle map of the USA (because, of course, we had one or two, DS was also fond of puzzles) and then gone ahead with showing him what the capitols are - maybe point out some patterns of similar names, etc.

We find that memorization and critical thinking have developed rather fluidly. Perhaps it is our style and our children's way of learning, but we have not explicitly tried to teach critical thinking nor have we discouraged memorization (they seem to enjoy it!). Much of their critical thinking has, I believe, developed as we talk to them about things they observe, we ask a lot of "What do you think that does? How might that be different? Where else could you find something like that?" questions.

I'm not sure you need to worry about what might be helpful at his age. If you continue to talk with him, help him explore his interests and figure things out, he will pick up what is helpful to him.

We certainly didn't think that knowing all the types of dinosaurs, what they ate and where they lived would be helpful to our child (unless he winds up a paleontologist), but he enjoyed it and that was enough. As he got older, there were studying or organizational tips that we did teach him, when he needed them. I doubt that doing that earlier than he needed it would have been useful.

Following the child's lead is indeed ideal. I'd personally not worry about memorization versus critical thinking skills. My youngest is about the same age as yours, and both my boys memorize well. Memorization allows your child to learn fast and make connections, which is the basis for those upper level thinking skills.

For example, my oldest was and still is a sight reader. Once he started reading too many words to memorize, he would memorize parts of words and use that to figure out new words. For example, he never learned about hard versus soft c. He memorized words like "ice" and just extrapolated.

Here are some things my three-year-old enjoys: I see Sam readers (free online), all sorts of games (dice games, card games, bingo type games, etc.), mazes, puzzles, learning about time (calendars and clocks), and typing words into the computer.

In my experience, "progression" can be jumpy with little ones, so playing to interests is easiest and most fun. I'll add as well that my oldest was so far ahead that his fine motor skills turned out to be a limiting factor at a certain point; as a result, I've put a lot more emphasis on fine motor with my youngest to avoid/minimize that.

Great advice above - follow his interests, and also ensure that you actively build areas of relative weakness. Integrated activities that build both on areas of interest and skills he might not be as interested in developing are great - puzzles, craft projects, practical life skills, etc. As for critical thinking, you can extrapolate from what he knows and ask him questions that require him to extend his thinking. "what do you think happened next? How would you figure x out? How do you think this made Y feel? etc.

It also sounds as though he is on the cusp of truly reading - give him a basic phonics book, go through it a few times, then set him loose with whatever reading material sparks his interest. Our children liked many of the Usbourne and DK books, which typically combine interesting information with text.

As a word of warning DS5 was similar as a toddler; he has a phenomenal memory and reads voraciously. About six months ago we realized that when he disputes us on a matter of fact/general knowledge he is almost always correct. Brace yourself and be ready to explain why a sleep-deprived overworked adult mind may not be that great at holding random facts in memory :-)