I have been re-reading some of the posts last night and this am (as I have indicated I would
)and I have one observation that I decided to share here, since it might help some of you in understanding your mathematically gifted kids.
We seem to worry here about those kids being bored to death in regular classes and our advocating is generally able to push the process ahead - by this I mean acceleration and grade skips, if not accross the board than at least in math. This leads us to the problems of accomodation high achieving math students in regular classrooms. It has happened to us. My DS has been placed in Algebra 1 in 5th grade.
The problems of this decision, as seen through my eyes today:
1. The teacher who is a very good lecturer of Algebra 1 might not be so good for Geometry and Algebra 2, since those are generally subjects not taught till HS. Keep this in mind. I am not even mentioning Calculus.
2. The acelerated child is still at the top of his class. He is learning more advanced material but his peers, even though years older, are still struggling, just the same as the peers in his regular, same age classroom were.
3. The fact that the accelerated student is collecting A+ does not mean that he is a problem solver. What is being taught in the classroom is just very basic touching of some of the basic ideas. More difficult problems are almost never introduced, there is no time, there is no interest, there are no incentives - only easy problems are on end of levels, after all, right ?
So do make sure that you involve your precocious mathematician in a LOT of problem solving contests. You will be shocked how poorly they are performing if they haven't been "trained" in solving more complex problems. DO NOT sit happy if your child is the best mathematician in his class/school. DO worry.
I am going to make a separate thread listing math contest/competitions avalable out there.
But here is a link to my favourite article - yes , AGAIN.
I somehow feel like I have a right to say it since I drasctically accelerated my child in math.
http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_A_Calculus.php
