My DS7 has never shown a big interest in math. He's VERY verbal, and early on had difficulty with one-to-one correspondence (counting objects) as he couldn't see that he should count them in some order. He recently has been asking more math questions, though. So, in a few days, I taught him how to add large numbers (carrying,etc...). And in the few minutes every couple of days we've talked about multiplication and division, he now understands those concepts (doesn't have all the multiplication tables memorized, but reasons out the answers -- not always correctly, but given enough time, he generally is able to figure it out). In school (1st grade), they're doing simple addition and subtraction. Does this seem like the type of thing you who have gifted math kids see from them, or are the mathy gifted far above this?
Thanks for the input!
Mine would be that it's a spectrum! As you can see from what they're doing in school, what your DS is doing is above the average required in school; on the other hand, plenty of children can do these things younger than 7 (my DS5 for example has those concepts, though not with great speed or accuracy, and there are plenty here more advanced than him). There's really enormous variation.
One thing that may be relevant to say is that it seems that in schools they are often really, really hung up on accuracy and speed, so the fact that they are still doing addition and subtraction of small numbers doesn't mean that those kids aren't ready for multiplication and division concepts, just that someone thinks they should be perfect at adding and subtracting before they're allowed to go on. I don't think this can be universal, because I remember a relative who used to teach in an English prep school (i.e. age 8-13) commenting on one boy not knowing his times tables when he took his admission test at 7, i.e., it was normal that applicants would, and I don't think the school in question was enormously selective; it's more a question of what's expected. (She was commenting, incidentally, because this boy turned out to be one of the best at maths she ever taught!)
