Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Mathy VS. Wordy

The DYS people told us that math is a bigger problem to accommodate. For reading, it doesn't matter so much what level you are. You can read what you like and expose yourself to the material you want, interpret more deeply, write more deeply, but for math, you have to have opportunity, so if you are held back on grade level, you are more likely to have problems.

Not sure how relevant, but wanted to chime in.

Yes! Very interesting wanderings. I am learning and enjoying!

I thought of my own two kids when I began reading this post. My oldest-- a 13 year old dd-- is "wordy". We homeschool and haven't had her formally assessed for giftedness, but she read well before 4, is extrememly articulate, is excelling in her 10th grade curriculum, and scored 99th percentiles on a cogat test, so we just assume she's gifted. I was in the gifted program growing up and she reminds me of myself, so I have never given her "giftedness" much thought.

But, I've given a *ton* of thought to my 8 year old "mathy" son. Parenting a mathy kid seems so much more confusing and overwhelming than parenting a wordy kid. With my wordy kid, I just make sure she has appropriate reading material and plenty of opportunities to write. Easy, IMHO. But, I'm at a loss for how to help an 8 year old son who is whizzing through highschool math and begging for more. It's not as easy as simply handing him a challenging math book to read. With my daughter, her reading abilities naturally matured as she grew older. With my son, however, he needs to actually be taught concepts and given practice problems and that sort of thing. This mathy challenge is what has driven me to seek out the Davidson Institute and forums such as this for guidance.

Math talents seem to have a bit more WOW! factor. When my 3rd grade daughter read on a 9th grade level, people might say "Hey, that's really impressive! She's a good reader!". When my 3rd grade son does math on a 9th grade level people the response is more like "OMG! He's a genius! That's amazing!!".

[quote=gratified3... Many mathematicians who made great contributions did so in young adulthood. That almost never happens in philosophy where life experience is almost required to think deeply about aesthetics or ethics. Many famous philosophers never wrote *anything* until 50 or so. I took math classes at university with math prodigies who were very young, but I never saw a 12 yo in my honors philosophy classes. [/quote]

Yes! And a math/science person can make 1 discovery early in life and then ride on that for their whole career. Or have 1 success and hundreds of failures and be considered a genius. For a writer or artist it usually takes a whole lifetime of work.

This discussion has inspired me to sign dd up for a weekend writing class. This is the area we have seen the most growth this year, so I hope she enjoys it. Plus its with a local resource we haven't taken advantage of yet.

BTW, my 7yo is reading the Tao Te Ching. Sounds like a philosphy class would be ideal!

Err... no. Maybe once, if the scientist in question were of independent means. These days, "you're only as good as your last paper, and when was that, anyway?"!

Introverted? In my "Mathy" childs case yes. He has his "Wordy" moments in the comfort of his home but even then I wouldn't call them frequent.



I agree CFK. This is also the case with my son. He has essentially been teaching himself maths for a number of years and he also has very high verbal abilities (99.9%).



Having teachers state that he is far beyond what they can teach him has never been an issue with Maths throughout school. Only one of his elementary school English teachers certainly didn't take well to his abilities, mind you it probably didn't help that he always said English was his least favourite subject. Once in high school though the teachers had no issue with it. I think we have been been fortunate in nearly all cases to have teachers willing to accept his abilities, that want to teach him and are actually excited about the challenge. The more "respectable" age does indeed make sense and as it has increased, DS is now 16, it has reached the point in the past couple of years that teachers now come to him for advice and help.

THis thread reminded me of this post at The More CHild blog. http://themorechild.com/2007/12/26/why-elementary-teachers-overlook-the-verbally-gifted-child/

I not only think of a highly verbal child as a great reader but also a great thinker. I remember just being puzzled by DS's VCI on the WISCIV and his verbal scores asking myself "What does it mean?" Does it mean he knows a lot of words? After reading here and other places, I came to think that it was more making connections, critical thinking. I recall that DSthen7-8, watching a NOVA show, making a connection with something else, then in the next segment, the narrator saying the exact same thing DS had said. I think in that sense, highly verbal kid can have issues that are more pervasive across the curriculum as suggested at the above link. I also read that highly verbal kids tend to do well in algebra. DS has gotten algebraic concepts at age 6 but we still must work on that pesky computation daily so I guess b/c of that, I don't see him as mathy. TO me, the computation wizard is more impressive. Probably b/c I'm not a computation wiz. Perhaps we're more impressed w/ skills/abilities we don't ourselves possess?

Dazey

Thanks for the link Dazey.



I don't exactly know how to word this, but do highly gifted introverted children generally have an "easier" time having their abilities recognised and respected and therefore acted upon?

Dottie - aren't these kids complicated little individuals? I recall a conversation with an archaeology professor about DS9. He went on and on about DS's abilities, about how if all the kids could think like DS, he could go sooo much faster with the class and much further but that DS was handling the pace well which will serve him well in the long run. i kept thinking...is he talking about my kid? I should add that DS was one of the younger kids in the group taking this course on Ancient Aztecs. As I was leaving, I said, "Thank you," and he replied, "No, thank you for (DS's name)." THis man talks so fast that next time I need to record our conversation so I can play it back and transcribe it. He stressed that I really need to stretch him and put him in situations like this course where he can have time to become comfortable and therefore make his learning more sociable. DS doesn't talk much. He will answer questions and even raise his hands but otherwise, he's pretty quiet but doesn't miss a thing.

A teacher friend explained the verbal ability this way. She said imagine being stuck in a 2nd grade classroom where directions are spoken 4x in a different way, written on the board etc when you'd be able to handle language of a 5-6th grade classroom.

I think this thread is coming across what was percolating for me when I started it. What exactly does verbally gifted mean beyond reading levels. G3 you touched on some things that ring true here. I can generally expect after DS has a field trip for a parent volunteer to say something along the lines of "Your son asked such great questions at the "fill in the blank." and at home he can be counted on to always have a suggestion or five on how anyone should do something better. And while socially he isn't a big hit his insights into people are very often dead on. The big vocabulary is in play as well. Just hope it doesn't get him beat up someday. :-)

I love the way this thread has woven so many ideas and paths together.