this is a really interesting thread - although I am sorry MoN that your DD is going through this. And especially sorry about the teacher - they really do make all the difference.
I have a different version of this same question - my DS 5 is huge leaps ahead in reading and understanding concepts - particularly science - it is astounding to me sometimes the connections he makes. But I would not describe him as "mathy" and its unclear to me (maybe I should ask the gurus) what part of the testing shows innate math skills. But what I have noticed is that he learns math best by reading about it. Despite having a phenomenal memory he is not consistently right when doing simple adding and subtraction - and far too frequently says 5-1=5, although will count it off correctly. Yet he knows and understands from the sir cumference books and cyberchase and other places things like area, diameter and circumference. He just read a fabulous book, the cat in numberland, and is now getting placeholding and concepts like infinity.
He's only 5 and he obviously prefers learning facts and concepts within a story - and I wonder if gifted kids continue to need that - albeit not about cats! Someone, Grinity maybe recommended a private school in CT once for someone and in reading its website, it made the point that a lot of math concepts were developed for navigation, and so they teach it from that perspective. I understand that drill and that sort of skill is necessary, but I wonder if perhaps Knute you can give her the relevance while she is doing this stuff in school - maybe that would make it not so horrible? Although if it is the teacher not sure it would help.
Not sure any of this was helpful, sorry!!
DeHe
