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Whole-to-parts or parts-to whole?


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I think my kids, especially my ds8, is needing to see more of the big picture in the work he's doing. He's good at remembering facts, and he's also good at making relationships. For instance, on the piano he plays by patters.

 

Anyway, he's not making the big connections. I wonder if gifted kids tend to need more whole-to-parts curriculum. And if so, which ones in the core curriculum have you found useful?

 

Thanks,

 

Kimberly

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I'm like this... I've always been a big picture person. My oldest is too.

 

I cannot speak for much except languages, but we've had great success with The Learnables Spanish and not much success with Minimus Secundus. The Learnables is structured in such a way that it's easier to see patterns than in Minimus.

 

For other subjects, I have lots of supplemental reading material lying around. DD devours puzzle books, Horrible Histories, Horrible Science and Murderous Maths books and we read a wide variety of fiction (currently nautical fiction). Because she has read so widely, she has a huge knowledge base from which to make connections. I'm very often surprised by what she comes up with.

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My children are older than yours, but you might want to keep these in mind. TWTM method of doing history, literature, science, spelling, and writing worked well when my children were little (and we're still doing some of them now in high school). We used Primary Math, which I'm not sure is the most big-picture out there but worked. Latin Primer definately didn't work. Grammar turned out to be easier to teach through Latin than using English. Things that have worked especially well for us are:

 

Draw Squad

Ecce Romani (but there are other whole to parts Latin programs out there, too)

Conceptual Physics

Natural History instead of biology in high school

Singapore math (PM then NEM)

TWTM way of doing history and literature (Kingfisher then real books for more details, and timelines are a pretty whole way of doing history)

 

You have to watch the science carefully. It is really easy to lose the big picture there. I found that doing everything within the context of natural history helped that. I also found that often "applied" and "whole" go hand in hand. Word problems in math, for example, are extra important, and readings in Latin.

 

HTH

-Nan

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My strongest whole-to-parts learner tends to learn the facts better once she sees the whole. I'm a whole-to-parts learner who had an easy time remembering facts when I was young but they made more sense if I saw the big picture--usually I get flashes of the big pictures and then everything fits.

 

Singapore Math works well for my dd. And she races through history because she enjoys it. She remembers the history better when she's done a lot of reading and gets the big picture rather than plodding through it. She is 10 and likes SOTW. She is not so good yet on all the details, but I'm expecting her to get that when she does her second round through history and she has a picture.

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We are Visual Spatial Learners at our house. My oldest definitely did best with a whole word approach as opposed to phonics while learning to read. We are using Singapore Primary Math and My Pal's Are Here Science with online math fact drill. SOTW is definitely good for us with lots of supplemental reading. We also do time lines as opposed to narrating. For each chapter my dc draw a picture that sums up the chapter or at least illustrates a high point. While each is coming up with their idea we have a good discussion of the chapter. These illustrations become those points around the facts are built. We are also using Brave Writer for writing with lots of copy of work. Right now we are using Calvert Spelling CD. I am not sure whether it is working as it is definitely our weak point but for some VSL's it is good.

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This is a really good point. I've made some things fail by doing them 10 minutes a day instead of in bigger chunks. Typing, for example. My son did this for half a year and didn't get anywhere until he did it for 1/2 hour at a time daily. Then he learned in about 6 weeks. We never were very successful with the short lesson periods for younger children. We usually do things for at least an hour, and then some things, like foreign language and math, we don't learn unless we hit them again in the evening.

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The majority of academically gifted children are global learners and they do need to see the big picture first. Google global learners. W&M curriculum and MBTP mentioned in other threads here move from the big picture to the details in most of their lessons.

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Thanks for the responses. I've printed these out and plan to try to teach the big picture first and then move on to the details. Hopefully, this will help.

 

I am sure that often times my children don't proceed as well as they could because they need more from me than I am giving them. I don't worry about it too much because they're doing well. But I know for a fact they're not doing their best, because they're not trying their best.

 

Hopefully, the big picture with slightly more challenging work will motivate them more and keep them challenged.

 

Kimberly

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I think that just depends on the child, not the IIQ. I am (at least I was, LOL) in the profoundly gifted catagory and I was definitely a parts to whole person. I tried to ask my children which way they prefer, but I am not sure they got the question.

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