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I have seen this with both my children. They had obsessions as two and three year olds which involved huge masses of memorised data. Within six months of moving on to other things they'd forgotten most of the information associated with the obsession.

I thought it was just me who did that. Now I know where she gets it from. Working on math facts. My husband dusted off his "little professor" math toy that he had from childhood. Apparently, he and the "little professor" spent a lot of quality time together. Unfortunately, dd does not seem to find the same appeal.

My ds5 is math crazy, so we've been doing math workbooks forever (he is odd - loves workbooks) . I'm pretty sure the 1st grade level books all had simple algebra in them. I just assumed that was common. He conceptualized algebra on his own at 4 but still hasn't totally wrapped his mind around time. I know it's the 60 minute=1 hour that throws him off. My ds also hasn't memorized any facts but quickly calculates. Yesterday it was "4+4+4 is almost like 5+5+5-3 so that means 4×3 is 12". Though I was impressed, I reminded him that just knowing 4×3=12 would be quicker.

My kids are odd too ;-)

I think G&T kids have more fun with quick calculations. Memorizing things is boring! I'm the same way (although when I was a kid, I was the kind of G&T where things just stuck in my head after I'd heard them once... I used to astound my parents, lol). Anyway. My kids are math monsters (DD9 is in the gifted math program at school), and they're not keen on facts either.

DS8 was doing negative numbers and fractions at 6, and now still struggles with memorized stuff. DD9 was adding, subtracting and multiplying at 3, and is only now just memorizing facts. My kids love the conceptual and are really put off by anything that's repetitive and bland.

I used to say the same thing "it would be faster to just remember, rather than recalculate" (such a simple concept - you think they'd get it, lol). Now I've let it be (for now, anyway - we'll see how they progress). Math facts are important, but my two kids are incredibly stubborn - sometimes it's easier and more effective to let them come to their own conclusions. My daughter seems to have finally decided that it's quicker to memorize, and so now she's doing it on her own. DS8 will come to this conclusion as well - likely faster on his own than if I get on his case too much.

I think you're right about the calculations being fun. My son tells time by counting fives from 12 though he has known the hand placement for o'clock, half -past, and quarter-til since he was little. One time he described how he had a computer screen in his brain where he can see the numbers turn different colors when he adds them, and I think he described some sort of imagined abacus. I'm a hugely visual learner, so I related it to seeing words in pictures before I learned to read ( I always saw Tennessee as two tennis rackets crossed and Kansas as the female version of John Denver)...I'm odd, too!

I think it's in large part that telling time is often taught poorly. Such time problems are no more inherently difficult than adding or subtracting with borrowing, or adding and subtracting measurements with conversion-- in fact those are all different forms of the same general types of operations, just with different terminology and types of "place value".

Have to give you a big thank you Tex - DS6 loves bedtime math - might be because we are using it to keep writing going over the summer and he views it as less writing but actually I think it's the giving of interesting story and facts alongside the math. DS is very good a setting up the equation from the word problems but slow with the facts, so I am just encouraging him - can you do it in your head, or do you need your fingers. It's also showing me what slows him down - like 9+3, he will start counting from the 3 rather than the 9. And he loves loves loves the 3 levels, he does the wee ones in his head, works on the little kids, and then he and i work together on their kids - great rec!

DeHe

I love the concept of the bedtime math which was that we read every day so reading is normal and fun. We can teach little kids math the same way. They say you have to memorize your math facts. Hearing/saying them in random order from the word problems every day should make them stick as good as any other way. Another thing we use is the khan math lectures on you tube. Type khan academy basic multiplication or addition 2 or partial quotient division. They're all good and only about 10-12 minutes. I tell my son to watch one math lecture then he can pick a kid show, which on YouTube is and hour long Mickey mouse clubhouse or something. I don't limit his screen time but I do limit his use of my iPhone. He can tell me some of the things from the videos in other contexts, like something came up when were eating cookies the other night about breaking three cookies into quarters how many friends could he share. And what if a friend gave a half of their piece. His out of the blue questions, so I guess some of it's sticking. And he counts 3 TIMES TABLE MULTIPLICATION SONG - FROM "THE NUMBEARS MULTIPLY!" and count by fives by schoolhouse rock, both on YouTube, as regular entertainment.

Is the fact that you think it isn't hard the only reason why you reckon it's being taught badly, Iucounu, or do you have other evidence of this? (Actually - what does it mean, anyway? If most people find X harder than Y, but a few don't, what is the difference between "X is often taught badly" and "X is occasionally taught fantastically"? Where does the norm come from?)

Personally I find it natural that children find time hard to learn, because, even though it is "just" another kind of place value, it's a different one from the one they're used to (and their first experience of the existence of bases other than 10) and it's one that is not supported by the number terminology and notation we use. If we had 10 hours in a day and 100 minutes in an hour, I venture to suggest children would find it easier to learn the basics of telling time. (No, I'm not suggesting we switch!)

No, of course not. Without trying to be combative, I think I've already given enough information to get the idea across.

If time arithmetic were taught more the way similar arithmetical concepts are taught, stressing the conversions between hours and minutes, for example by setting up borrowing/carrying problems with hours and minutes columns (this is also a decent way to show how to work some problems with conversions between greater and lesser units of measurement), it would probably be easy to understand in the same way for the large majority of children. It'd probably be easiest for most children to postpone learning the modular aspects of time until the basic conversions are understood.

Aside from the understanding of what's going on numerically, the analog clock face can be confusing if improperly taught too. I think this is mainly because the hours and minutes are overlaid on the same dial; I've seen poor teaching methods begin stressing things like skip-counting or multiplying by fives to calculate minutes too early. Introduce all of this before the numerical concepts are understood, and it's a recipe for confusion.*

(Most of the rest of small, relatively unimportant time skills could easily be taught after a foundation had been correctly laid-- hour fractions 'til and past, etc.-- and thus should be initially postponed. I haven't attempted to list all the time skills here, or my take on a correct scope and sequence.)

I'm not a teacher, but I do have some math tutoring experience, as well as having taught time to one of my own children. I also have seen a wide array of teaching materials, and have bought some of them. These are the bases of my opinion. I'm confident that I could teach time fairly quickly to any child who's not developmentally delayed, and who's been correctly taught enough prerequisite math.

* There are a number of truly marvelous ways to counteract such issues, which this margin is too narrow to contain.