Okay, going through the material at a faster rate is great-- and works just as intended...

provided that the curriculum itself doesn't keep looping back to repeat the same topics ad nauseum.

Currently, that is precisely what K-8 mathematics seems to be dead-set on doing.

Apparently spiraling is a highly effective tool for most average and below-average students in mathematics, because it reinforces skills and slowly builds upon previous learning (or fixes it as needed) in order to construct proficiency, say, with place value.

Or fractions.

Or multiplication.

{sigh}

The problem is that HG+ kids who are mastery-oriented learners (and so many of them are)-- they notice the holes in the explanations, and worry at them like terriers the FIRST time around, interrogating teachers until they GET all four years' worth of explanations out of them.

OR-- they can see that there is just so little there there (novelty to learn from) that they refuse to engage with it at all. {yawn}

We saw both things happen IN SPADES with my DD.

Now, some kids are more compliant about demonstrating skills that are three or four years in the rear view mirror, and there was a time (3-7yo, about) when my DD was, too.

Also-- that tends to build really negative socially prescribed perfectionism in those kids who are susceptible to it, because they eventually come to a place where they already KNOW what they are being offered-- all of it-- and therefore there is NO reward for learning, only punishment for not knowing/showing-- perfectly.

Does that make sense?

This is why my hypothesis is that with this type of learner, it's way better not to introduce topics that they don't have the skills/tools to REALLY dig into and master. Teach it like you're building a pyramid. Upside down.

wink

But that's not how math curricula are intended or constructed. Singapore comes closest to that ideal, with the least spiraling/repeating and the lowest levels of drill-and-kill... but most N. American curricula at this point is fatally flawed for this kind of student, IMO.


Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.