Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Logic and reasoning, wwyd?

My 6 year old just started Stanford EPGY, through the homeschooling open enrollment program, he is being introduced to a lot of concepts for the first time through this program, logic and reasoning is one of them. He has always scored close to 100% on everything in math, very consistently, but with logic and reasoning he is scoring in the mid 80's. I leave him to do it alone (he likes to be independent) but if I hover over him a bit while he is working, I can tell he is really struggling to understand some of the logic, (but somehow is still getting high grades?!). I read somewhere that kids of a young age cannot do logic and reasoning because their brains aren't mature enough. He is working at a 3rd grade level atm.

Should I somehow try to help him by practicing more logic and reasoning with other sources, or should I just let him keep going and wait for him to get it in his own time? The logic and reasoning portion is dragging his overall scores down (albeit, not by much, since he is at 96%, but he is a perfectionist), that upsets him. I hate to see him struggle with it and become upset, but I am also worried that its just something he isn't ready for yet.

Some kids can understand logic at a VERY young age. That's a fallacy.

The real question is does YOUR child understand it.

If he enjoys the reasoning and just dislikes not getting 100%, then I wouldn't worry about it. It's probably good for him to be challenged. If he's just guessing at the reasoning and is frustrated because he doesn't get it, I'd set it aside or work on it separately.

Hrmm, I suppose the key is finding out if he is truly struggling or if he is just finding it a challenge. I suppose 85% is a high score for someone who doesn't understand the concept, so perhaps it is just proving more of a challenge for him than everything else.

i bellieve Davidson says 80% is mastery.

Thank you, I didn't even think about it like that. I guess you can't fluke mastery.

Its clearly me who needs to adjust. I don't think I have overly high expectations, but when you're used to seeing certain scores and then all of a sudden they drop, it sends up a red flag. I also have one that has really struggled, so I'm on extra high alert.

I'll just let him carry on. I feel a lot more at ease about it now, thanks!

Ask him if it's bothering him and then sit down and explain the concepts to him as he comes to them. That's what we do with Wolf and he's 5 doing 4-6 grade logic right now. It's not the easiest subject he has, but it's his favorite.

Thanks, I will try it, he *really* likes to work by himself and figure out the problems by himself, but it cant hurt to try.

You might try explaining that you aren't going to DO it for him, just help explain the concept (which with logic assignments are often very different things). For example you could explain that this page is looking for correlations like Big to Small, but not give him the answer of elephant to mouse. Explain that it's not that you are doing any figuring out FOR him, just making sure he understands he concept to help prevent him getting frustrated with it. Not only that you'll ONLY help explain the ones that he has problems with. Hopefully that will work for him.

That's only if he is bothered by it of course!

I recently began challenging my DD for the first time in math. It was hard to see the first 85% and not be concerned, but I am very pleased that she is now having to work for those grades rather than skate through. We are finally passed the stomping to her room while muttering about the computer under her breath and slamming the door stage.

Was this stage before you found more challenging work?