How can a child go to college early?

[blessedmom3]

My son is 9 and just started algebra. He wants to be a programmer. If he wants to go to college early, what would we have to do? Take the SAT,ACT test ? I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do . He is not emotionally mature. Also, although advanced in science&math, his composition skills are at his age level. So with lower writing skills,can you still finish high school ?

 

Our local community college does not accept kids under 15 to take classes. So how does one go to college without satisfying the college graduation requirements?

[kohlby]

I'd not push him to go to college early at that age. I would continue to accelerate what he needs accelerated. He could take college level courses as he does high school courses later on, making meeting his needs better. At 9, it's hard to say if he'll be mature enough to graduate early. Boys tend to lose maturity at a couple places along the way though.

 

My oldest is also 9. He finished Algebra I and is now plowing through Intro to Number Theory. I'm not sure what curriculum you're using, but Art of Problem Solving is awesome for gifted math kids - and has lots of levels of math so they're less likely to run out. Make sure he's doing more in depth, not just faster. I am still calling my oldest a 4th grader. He's actually ahead in all subjects, but he's still a 9 year old boy. I don't want to push him ahead in grade number when I can simply change the content he is doing. With him though, the plan is to try to get him into the public magnet math and science high school that is 11th and 12th grade only - they have college courses there. And not just the fluffy College Algebra of Tech schools, but courses like Differential Equations. Another option is having your child take CLEP tests for college credit while not in college yet. Check the colleges he's thinking about to see which ones they accept though when you start to do that.

 

To enter college early, you need to follow whatever they require. SAT/ACT will most likely have to be taken. I'll likely have my son do that in 7th grade anyway, as part of the John Hopkins Talent search. But he'll retake it when high school age for purposes of National Merit Scholar and college applications. If there is an age minimum, then call up the school when the time comes to ask about getting around it. They might require you to sit outside the class or have some other accomodation. Also keep in mind that those community colleges are great for getting some of the simple mandatory courses out of the way, some may not have the type of courses you're looking for. Many advanced math students never take College Algebra and start out in Calculus instead. Another option is online classes. Since he's only 9, I really wouldn't worry about it yet. I'd just meet his specific needs now and make sure he has curriculum that is involved enough for him.

[gabbymom]

A friend is currently blogging how his home schooled kids skipped from 8th grade to college starting here: http://chapmankids.net/blog/2013/03/16/why-not-skip-high-school-introduction/

[regentrude]

My son is 9 and just started algebra. He wants to be a programmer. If he wants to go to college early, what would we have to do? Take the SAT,ACT test ? I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do . He is not emotionally mature. Also, although advanced in science&math, his composition skills are at his age level. So with lower writing skills,can you still finish high school ?

 

Our local community college does not accept kids under 15 to take classes. So how does one go to college without satisfying the college graduation requirements?

 

 

For a 9 y/o, I find it way too early to speculate about early college, especially since you say he is not particularly mature.

What is your goal? Why do you want to send him early? What benefit do you see? The strategy will depend on your answer.

 

Your student can graduate high school early as soon as he finishes the coursework required for admission to college. That can be done at any age. He needs to take ACT/SAT and apply for admission to college. (now, if he gets in, logistics can become tricky if he is significantly younger, but there are early college programs specifically for very young entrants.) Be aware that kids do not get any bonus points for being younger; they will have to compete with normal age applicants. So, I'd rather spend more time and get a competetive transcript together.

But you can also simply have your gifted student work on college level coursework during the high school years and NOT graduate many years earlier. That is what I have been doing with my DD. She has been in college classes since she was 13, but will graduate only one year early and then go away for university. Thanks to OCW, you don't even need to enroll them anywhere, but can have him study at college level until you want to graduate your student. This can satisfy the need for intellectual challenge without sending a student to live in another city of he is not yet mature enough to do so.

[retiredHSmom]

My daughter skipped from 8th grade to college. She is currently a sophomore at Mary Baldwin College in the the Program for the Exceptionally Gifted. She will graduate from college at 18.

 

PEG is women only program as MBC is a women's college. MIT has a similar co-ed program. There is a co-ed, non-residential program at one of the UC schools.

 

Early college was the best decision we could have made for my daughter. She is thriving academically and socially. She is the vice-chair of the Residence Hall Association, has the highest GPA in her graduation class, she was accepted to a research internship for the summer at another college in Indiana and is a math major with double minors in physics and piano.

 

To get into PEG she took the ACT and applied like any other college student. We did transcripts, got letters of recommendation and she wrote application essays.

 

I will say that your child needs to be emotionally mature to succeed. My daughter's incoming class has experienced 50% attrition and none of the girls left because they had poor grades. Students need to be able to operate as college students.

[blessedmom3]

I am just exploring possibilities right now.He said he wants to finish school as soon as possible so he can go to college to learn how to program. I'm not sure i'd want him to sit next to much older kids though and anyway I think his composition skills will hinder him from succeeding the sat tests though and to tell you the truth,I write worse than him (english is my 3rd language).We also cannot afford a tutor,but work through IEW and other programs.

 

Regentrude,how does your dd take college classes? Is it online, building or do you just buy the books ? If so ,how do I know which books to buy and where? Are these self teaching? These might seem silly questions,but I have no one to ask,thus why I come here :) I suppose he will be ready for college work math in a few years,but his writing will still be age level. In my country, you cannot go to college unless you pass a minimum standard in math, LA and science. Isn't it the same here in the US?

Also, if a 13-15 yo is doing college level work,what is the benefit of it, will it be recognized by the university when the child works at home (maybe through an assessment?)

[MomatHWTK]

With all the available online options, it is possible for college level courses to be taken far earlier than in the past. He may not get credit for them, but he can certainly access college level programming coures early. We take advantage of Coursera and Udacity classes, The Teaching Company lectures and anything else that comes along of interest. I love that my kids can see what is available to them once they get out of the lower grades- much more variety and interesting materials.

[8filltheheart]

You might want to read through this thread: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/419614-planning-for-accelerated-children-and-getting-into-college/#entry4246296

(ETA: the thread starts with discussion about online college, but it does progress to pros and cons of early graduation and early admissions.)

 

It discusses a lot of the pros/cons of early college. I am personally not in favor of it b/c I have witnessed my kids changing from teenagers to adults and know that there is a lot more into growing up than intelligence. Common sense falls out their ears when they are infatuated! Too much growing up takes place in those precious teen yrs.

[quark]

I am just exploring possibilities right now.He said he wants to finish school as soon as possible so he can go to college to learn how to program.

 

There are a ton of options for him to learn now (assuming you are talking about intro level programming. If your son is already a very advanced programmer, please ignore).

 

Another website to look at apart from Coursera and Udacity is Code.org

 

You also want to consider that he needs a good math and logic background for programming and that gets plenty hard and challenging in high school. He may not proceed as quickly through high school math as he has for prealgebra math and a good logic program will help him slow down some more and really get his mental gears primed for the appropriate level of thinking.

 

One way we are handling the maturity issue is to accelerate at home to high school level and then take 5-6 years working on challenging high school and a few intro college level materials. So instead of the usual 3 years of middle school + 4 years of high school route, my son will do high school level and intro college level work for 5+ years. And I am not counting his Algebra as high school level math. He might still go to college early, but it won't be as early as 10-12yo. Again, this is because we are still able to challenge him at home and outsource for subjects we can't.

[Nan in Mass]

If your son wants to graduate early just because he wants to take better math classes and programming classes, then I would do a search for "open courseware". Here, for example, is the open courseware site for MIT: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm Usually these courses are free online college classes, often set up to be done independently. The catch is that you usually don't get college credit for them. For a homeschooler who just wants to know the information, though, they can be wonderful. The other thing you might investigate is Khan Academy: http://www.khanacademy.org/ These are a series of online videos of classes teaching math, science, programming, and other things. They might be fun for him to look at right now.

 

Otherwise:

 

You will have to decide whether you want your child to take college classes as part of his high school education or whether you want your child to finish high school requirements and then go to college or whether you want your child to go to an early college program like the one at Mary Baldwin College.

 

Many people here have their children take college classes as part of high school. You would do this by picking a near-by college and looking on their web-site to find out how to sign up for classes without applying and being accepted into a degree program (matriculating). Look under "continuing education". Here is a list of who can take continuing education classes at one of our state colleges:

 

"In continuing education you can:

· Enroll in a bachelor's degree program

· Finish your bachelor's degree in a degree-completion program

· Enroll in a certificate program

· Take a class for professional development

· Take a class to transfer to another institution

· Take a class just because you're interested the subject"

 

There are directions for what the requirements are for each type of class. A "certificate" is like a degree but without the general education requirements. You would have to check and see if there is an age limit, but even if there is, you can go and ask the college to make an exception to their rule for your particularly bright child. (The same may be true of your community college.)

 

If you want to graduate your son early and have him apply as a regular freshman student, then you will have to decide what requirements he will need to graduate and be accepted to college. Some colleges will accept the GED test instead of a high school diploma. Taking the GED is what some high school drop-outs do when they want to go to college, so you will need to think about whether this is a good idea or not. Perhaps yes perhaps no. Generally, to apply to college, your student needs to take (or be taking) at least 4 years of high school level English and math, 2 years of history (including US history), 2 lab sciences, 2 years of foreign language, and a certain number of electives. That is the absolute minimum that I have seen. Most colleges want SAT or ACT scores. You can take this test by signing up and paying online and then going to a local school to take it on the day you signed up for. The school may also want a recommendation from a high school teacher and an interview. You fill out an application, which often includes an essay. You are accepted with the assumption that you will finish your courses and graduate. If you don't graduate, they un-accept you. You usually apply in the winter, find out if you are accepted in the spring, and go the following fall.

 

Some colleges have programs for "early admittance". The student applies without finishing high school. There may be extra requirements for this. You would look on the admissions section of the college website. Or telephone admissions and ask.

 

At our community college, a student just has to take the placement tests (math, writing, reading) to take for-credit classes. No SAT. If the student wants to matriculate and be in a degree program, then he needs a high school diploma or a GED. There are also not-for-credit classes open to the general public. My high schoolers just took the placement tests and then went to class.

 

HTH

Nan

[Laura Corin]

FWIW, I had more or less the same question when Calvin was your child's age. He had tested PG. His speciality is English rather than maths. Whilst he was still at home, we went broad rather than fast: he read extensively and learned three foreign languages, as well as doing some high school classes early (biology, classical civilisation and Chinese to GCSE level).

 

When he decided to go to school there was at least a year when he didn't move forward much academically. He was learning a different kind of social life and that took up a lot of his energy. He has ended up studying the International Baccalaureate a year ahead of his age group. The IB is stretching and interesting. He will end up going to university a year early (or taking a gap year) which will be good timing for him.

 

Best of luck

 

Laura

[regentrude]

Regentrude,how does your dd take college classes? Is it online, building or do you just buy the books ? If so ,how do I know which books to buy and where? Are these self teaching?

 

 

Her first course, she audited by instructor consent without being formally enrolled.

At age 14 in 10th grade, she formally enrolled as dual enrollment student with her - up to then - high school transcript and SAT score at the local four year university. She took one course her first semester, and two courses each semester in 11th grade. She will take three courses in the fall.

 

Since she thrives on classroom interaction, online courses would not work well for her. She wants to be in a class, with other students, and a live instructor. If we had a better high school, she'd go to school - we homeschool out of necessity only.

Same for self-studying from textbooks.

 

Also, if a 13-15 yo is doing college level work,what is the benefit of it, will it be recognized by the university when the child works at home (maybe through an assessment?)

 

 

For us, the benefit is that my gifted kids would not be challenged by high school work. they need the level to feel engaged in their school work.

If a student is self-studying, there are many different ways to get recognition. The student can sign up to take the AP test in the subject (offered once a year); a good score will give college credit. The student can also take a CLEP test (although that is less widely recognized by universities). Lastly, the student can, when going to real college, go to his instructor and request to receive credit by examination or at least be placed in the higher class according to his examination results (details vary depending on school).

 

If you want to self-study at college level, there are numerous free online courses available. You find books by looking online which books are popular for use in college classes. So, your student can definitely work on college level even if he is still home and in high school. This is especially good if a student does not develop in all subjects simultaneously - is advanced in math, for example, but just grade level in English.

Unless the only way a student would thrive is to send him away to college, I personally would err on the side of caution and send them later, rather than sooner, especially a boy.

[regentrude]

I am just exploring possibilities right now.He said he wants to finish school as soon as possible so he can go to college to learn how to program.

 

 

Why does he have to go to college to learn that? there are tons of options out there, many of them free.

Udacity and Coursera each have free programming courses. AoPS has a class (not free).

 

And lastly, the best way to learn how to program is to find a project and program! Nothing I learned in my programming class at university was remotely as useful as having to wrestle with actual code to program an actual project.

[kiana]

Also, if a 13-15 yo is doing college level work,what is the benefit of it, will it be recognized by the university when the child works at home (maybe through an assessment?)

 

The real benefit is the learning. I know it sounds trite, but it's true.

 

If the work is done through an accredited university or the AP program, it may transfer or qualify the child for more advanced work. It may also, though, qualify them for a serious honors version of the regular course. For example, Cornell/MIT/Harvard/many others have a freshman calculus course which is extremely challenging, as well as their standard calculus course. For most students, it would be to their advantage to take Calculus for CrazyMathy Freshmen instead of skipping that and taking standard sophomore courses.

 

In general, I don't think a student should be accelerating (in recorded grade level, NOT in material!) unless they are prepared to be working at a high level in their new grade. I don't see the point in a student being 14 years old and average for a freshman when they could have been 16 and going to an extremely good school with a full ride. Enrolling for individual courses is entirely different from entering school full-time.

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

He doesn't have to wait for collage to begin programing! Take a look at this: http://www.amazon.co...hon programming

 

The second book is where it gets really fun. http://www.amazon.com/Making-Games-Python-Pygame-Sweigart/dp/1469901730/ref=pd_sim_b_1

[stripe]

Why does he have to go to college to learn that? there are tons of options out there, many of them free.

 

My first computer experience was in sixth grade, when I was selected to stay after school to program in Logo. I have very fond memories of that turtle and my *very own* floppy disk (the big, flat kind)! It was a total hoot. I have no memory of any other kids there, just the awesome, balding female teacher.

 

I downloaded Scratch on the computer for my kids to play with. I did computer programming in college, so I feel comfortable with that, but if you don't, I certainly wouldn't feel your son must go to college. Are there any Lego Mindstorms or other robotics or similar groups near you?

[Crimson Wife]

My oldest will be a young-for-grade 6th grader (October birthday) and really wants to do a formal multi-grade skip and start high school in the fall. She is annoyed that I am using high school and even some college-level materials in many subjects but not giving her high school credit for them. The problem is that while she is perfectly capable of doing the work, she is unwilling to put in the time and produce the output required for me to give her high school credit. What she is doing is age-appropriate but I have to consider them "honors" middle school courses rather than high school ones.

 

What I suspect is driving the push to start H.S. early is because I told her that once she graduates H.S. she will have greater freedom to study only the things that interest her. She wants to dump math from her schedule, and that's not going to happen until she graduates H.S.

[wapiti]

I downloaded Scratch on the computer for my kids to play with. I did computer programming in college, so I feel comfortable with that, but if you don't, I certainly wouldn't feel your son must go to college.

 

To add to this, one of my ds10s has been teaching himself Scratch from youtube videos for hours on end the past few weeks, something he picked up from his Minecraft experience (nevermind the Scratch books I bought them for Christmas :glare: ). It was hilarious and wonderful to hear him explaining some things to his brother. (I had a smitch of programming in college too, but that is long gone from my memory, and I don't foresee needing to help him anytime soon, or ever really.)

[wapiti]

He doesn't have to wait for collage to begin programing! Take a look at this: http://www.amazon.co...hon programming

 

The second book is where it gets really fun. http://www.amazon.co.../ref=pd_sim_b_1

 

Can anyone compare these to: Programming the Raspberry Pi: Getting Started with Python

[stripe]

(I had a smitch of programming in college too, but that is long gone from my memory, and I don't foresee needing to help him anytime soon, or ever really.)

I actually did a lot of programming in college, but it's mostly been forgotten. Alas. But I was able to debug sloppy programming (the if loop he had constructed conflicted with a direction inside the loop - the lrogram needed one but not both to advance the program along). That, I think, is a good side effect of programming: having to be really, really precise and break things down into tiny steps.

 

Actually I put an end to the Scratch programming when they started inserting a recording of their own screams within the program. Unfortunately the first recording was my idea (not of a scream).

[happypamama]

Almost twenty years ago, I started taking three classes a semester, for four semesters, at a local university, starting in my junior year of high school. Then when I applied to my chosen university, I had about 38 credits, all of which transferred as either gen ed or elective credits, and they only transferred as credits, not grades. I ended up graduating from college a year early, which saved me a fortune in out-of-state tuition (and more importantly, let me get married sooner too, LOL). This was a really good plan, because while I was a mature and level-headed student, I was also pretty shy; some of the credits in high school were through a special program that was designed for high school students, and the professors were part of the program. It really gave us a feel for how to adjust to college life, while still having a support system of parents (and professors who expected to be guiding high school students) in place. When I went off to college at 18, I found it to be an easy adjustment. I still graduated early, but without going off to college early, which I think was good.

 

If I were sending a student to college in the next few years, I'd probably have him/her take classes at a local college during the junior and senior years of high school, summers, and the first year of college, doing two years' worth of credits over three years, and then I'd have the student transfer to a different college (or main branch of my alma mater, of which there are several branch campuses near by, so that would be the obvious first place to look). I think it would also depend on the college/university; my university is very, very large -- it is a great place to be, but you have to find your own niche there, and I can see how it would be intimidating for a younger student. (My own brother looked at it because I was there, and though he'd have been 18 when he started, he was turned off by the sheer size. I didn't care for the crowds myself, but I also was self-directed and knew what I wanted, so I carved out my place. But I know kids for whom it was just too big and impersonal and who slipped through the cracks.) Otoh, a college that would provide very personal guidance might be an excellent place for a young, but very bright, student.

[wapiti]

OP, there are more programming resources in this thread from the Logic board: http://forums.welltr...to-programming/

 

Eta, there may be summer programming camps near you. So far, the ones I've found around us are either already full, relatively expensive, requiring an older age than my ds10 (and he hasn't had algebra yet, which I saw listed as a pre-requisite for a few courses), or all of the above, but it may be worth googling around to see if anything fits the bill. There are also local robotics clubs.

[Barbara H]

Yes, I would let him go ahead and start learning to program now. Scratch is a great place to start.

 

You may want to also consider the ACT or SAT as part of a Talent Search program in 7th grade.

 

Many high schools students are prepared to do at least some work on the college level. This is especially true when you look at lower level college courses, particularly at community colleges, which can have some overlap with high school work. Just being at this point, doesn't dictate that a child go to college early. Early college can be a great fit for some students, but I would look to it as more of a last resort for kids who have really exhausted the other options available. Keep in mind that colleges don't want to see "great for a 13 year old" - they want "great for an entering college freshman." There aren't points for entering early - if anything students should be expected to be held to a higher standard.

[lisabees]

Why does he have to go to college to learn that? there are tons of options out there, many of them free.

Udacity and Coursera each have free programming courses. AoPS has a class (not free).

 

And lastly, the best way to learn how to program is to find a project and program! Nothing I learned in my programming class at university was remotely as useful as having to wrestle with actual code to program an actual project.

 

 

:iagree: At the age of 9, my oldest ds started teaching himself programming. He read huge books, went on forums and practiced, practiced, practiced. By the time he was 12/13, he knew at least four different languages and had a full-fledged business. He was making thousands of dollars a year.

 

Now that he is in college, he is not interested in taking computer classes. He says everything he needs to know he can teach himself.

 

I would give your son a laptop, tons of free time and let him learn on his own. If he is a typical computer programmer, he'll hide away for hours (I know, not necessarily a good thing).

 

ETA: OP, hasn't your son started learning to program yet? I'm a little confused. It seems a bit premature to consider early college for programming if he hasn't yet learned any real computer languages.

[HS Mom in NC]

My 15 and 17 year old daughters are starting community college this fall. They are allowed to begin at 13, but I don't think many children are ready for an adult environment before the high school years. Some not until 18. Why would he need to go to college before 15? After about 15 or 20 credit hours at a CC students can just transfer to a state university without any ACT/SAT testing-at least that's how it works here.

 

My husband began computer programming on his own at the age of 12. His software has been on satellites, various types of civilian and military aircraft, payment kiosks, and the like.Give your child plenty of formal logic. A significant chunk of a programmer's time is spent debugging software and a shocking number of programmers are not able to do it efficiently and logically with basic deductive and inductive logic. They just do random crap until stuff works which makes them inefficient and hard to work with. Lots of software jobs require the programmer to write a users document. A surprising number of computer programmers are incapable of writing clearly and concisely. Clearly articulating what, why, and how software is written is a big part of the job when dealing with customers and colleagues. Explaining things clearly is very important. Focus on those things with your son too. Most programmers are handicapped by their insistence on learning to program in only 1 or 2 programming languages. Learning to program in lots of different languages and learning which programming language is best suited to each situation makes a programmer far more valuable.

[quark]

And lastly, the best way to learn how to program is to find a project and program! Nothing I learned in my programming class at university was remotely as useful as having to wrestle with actual code to program an actual project.

 

Absolutely! Having a reason to learn makes learning all the more productive and meaningful. Several years ago, I tried learning html via webmonkey and a book and no matter how hard I tried, things just wouldn't click. Then I decided that I really, really disliked standard blog templates and wanted to improve the look of my blog so I started doing it "upside down"...using the free template first, then googling for tips to hack it and voila...it comes so much more naturally. This is just a simple example but I see the value of a reason to do something and having the "drive" to see it through.

 

OP, it sure looks like your son has the drive...now it's a matter of how to use that drive to propel him through a challenging, meaningful educational path.

 

When my son mentioned wanting to major in math and seemed quite serious about it, we brainstormed together asking ourselves, "Okay, what do we need to do to make this happen? How do we get started?" (also search for lewelma's posts on how she is working with her son to achieve his dream to be a mathematician...very inspiring stuff). Based on my child's response, I went about making a rough plan for him. Nothing is cut and dried right now but we have a sort of flexible framework that includes researching good biographies of famous mathematicians (good excuse to watch documentaries on youtube too lol), researching math summer camps and saving up for the good ones or trying to find a way to get scholarships for them if we can, giving him LOTS of time to use and play with math and encouraging self-directed research, and finding another way for him to shine instead of the math competitions route (because he seems really averse to being timed for math...he thinks it's not a good way to do math...obviously a pure math guy at the moment...there are non-timed advanced competitions but he is not at that level yet).

 

So it's not just about finishing the usual high school math sequence but also the overall picture of what it will take. I made it clear to him that he has to learn to write because good mathematicians still have to communicate...no one has learned to read minds yet right? So he is practicing it by learning to write proofs and blog articles...still very much a beginner at it of course but it's a good first step. But half the battle is won because he enjoys math so doesn't mind as much writing about it vs book reports and other stuff that don't hold as much meaning for him.

 

Similarly, you can encourage your son by looking into what it takes to be good at programming and creating a plan together. When you have his buy-in it will be much easier to work at the prerequisites. If you plan it right, you could very well work in high school credits based on his interests.

 

There are lots of very, very highly skilled young kids today who take to programming like fish to water and your son could very well be one too...even if he manages to be successful early like some of the 12-15yos out there designing apps and giving TED talks (and 18yos making millions), I still think working on a plan together for higher ed while also working on some projects he is passionate about can help make him a solid, stand out candidate for colleges. It will show colleges that he is serious, focused and committed, and not just talented.

 

Good luck OP!

[MASHomeschooler]

You also want to consider that he needs a good math and logic background for programming and that gets plenty hard and challenging in high school.

 

Give your child plenty of formal logic. A significant chunk of a programmer's time is spent debugging software and a shocking number of programmers are not able to do it efficiently and logically with basic deductive and inductive logic.

 

If I may get slightly off-topic here (I'm thinking OP may want to know, too, though, so I'll ask here):

Can either of you (or anyone else) recommend a good, strong logic program? I've been looking ahead (just making notes of possible resources I might use for various subjects down the line - my oldest is just in second) and this is one area where I haven't found anything that excites me.

[HS Mom in NC]

We haven't found anything that excites us either, but Critical Thinking Co. has several logic workbooks called Mindbenders Deductive Thinking Skills by Anita Harnadek that we did with the kids when they were younger. There is a chart the kids use to keep track of things with each problem. Ignore the grade levels-they're irrelevant. This series is definitely worth doing. We did them out loud together with my older two in late elementary school. Sometimes the problems were better done in a more physical way. We made up our own manipulatives to solve them, but the vast majority of the time, the chart met our needs.

 

Grocery stores and books stores (Barnes and Noble in my case) used to carry a magazine called Original Logic Problems produced by Penny Press. They are very similar to the above mentioned workbooks, but they're on a larger scale with more details. They also have Sudoku problems in them.

 

A great game for inductive logic is Zendo. My kids have been playing it with my husband for years and it's delightful. Since were are not Buddhist, we change the vocabulary from, "Does the koan have the Buddah nature?" to "What is the pattern?" http://en.wikipedia....ki/Zendo_(game)

 

Set is also a great thinking game. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_%28game%29

 

Sudoku and KenKen books are available at most book stores. They are a good approach to introduce kids with an love of numbers to another form of logic.

 

We also did the Cothran books from Memoria Press (Traditional Logic 1, Tradition Logic 2, Material Logic, and Rhetoric) which are adequate but the religious views of the author don't line up exactly with ours. Nothing in life is perfect, so it did enough to warrant using them to learn to argue logically. We didn't do the add on books with Rhetoric, we just did the assignments related to Aristotle's book. We didn't do any Latin so we skipped the Latin translation assignments too.

 

Both of my older kids were using one of them (the oldest Material Logic and the other one Traditional Logic 1) when they did Geometry (which they did together) using Euclid's Elements and the Jacobs Geometry textbook. Both mentioned that the Formal Logic with Cothran was complimentary and helpful when it came to doing proofs in Geometry (itself a form of logic.)

 

We didn't like the Bluedorn stuff.

[quark]

@MASHomeschooler:

 

DS did a lot of Mindbenders when younger and he works on logic puzzles all the time. Some of the titles he uses, like the Moscow Puzzles, Canterbury Puzzles etc. are listed in the link in my siggy. He also had a Penny Puzzles book and couldn't be seen leaving home without it at one time.

 

I never really thought of these as logic programs though (he is just having fun mostly), more from my own ignorance than having any high bar for what logic is. I didn't do formal logic in school and have very little background in it otherwise. I did enjoy debate so I honed some critical thinking skills that way.

 

DS enjoys debate too and a class he took gave him a good amount of thinking skills practice for a while. He personally experienced what it is like to argue without solid facts and to avoid embarrassment, he learned to research and construct arguments better for the next time.

 

What really, really helped for DS though was starting geometry early. He spends a lot of time thinking about proofs and works with a tutor to discuss his and other possible approaches to construct the proof. His tutor uses a high school level text and lately, I believe what is a college level text, to challenge him. This will stretch DS's geometry into more than a year of the standard high school track. DS loves it and we have lots of time so I am just going with the flow without thinking about assigning credits and such yet.

 

DS is also using the Advanced Mathematical Logic course from eIMACS. This is something we added in because my umbrella school pays for it (out of our stipend). If you homeschool with an umbrella school that provides a stipend, you could approach eIMACS to see if they will agree to become an approved vendor. I don't recommend it lightly if paid for out of pocket because of the cost (about $1000 per 40-week course, many students finish early). There are three courses altogether in the track and a student has to take a placement test. They will recommend the best option based on the test results. DS qualified for both the Math and CS tracks but chose Math because that's his main love right now. A programming-interested child might want to take the CS track.

[stripe]

Grocery stores and books stores (Barnes and Noble in my case) used to carry a magazine called Original Logic Problems produced by Penny Press. They are very similar to the above mentioned workbooks, but they're on a larger scale with more details. They also have Sudoku problems in them.

These are great. Many prelaw students in college use this type of thing because it appears on the LSAT. You can subscribe to the Penny Press puzzle magazines-- I do! They also have a British logic puzzle magazine.

 

http://www.pennydellpuzzles.com/subcategory.aspx?c=logicmath

 

MEP has a section in the first part of Y7 on logic, by the way. It explains how to solve the puzzles.

http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/book7/book7.htm

Go to ch 1

[Arcadia]

Keep in mind that colleges don't want to see "great for a 13 year old" - they want "great for an entering college freshman." There aren't points for entering early - if anything students should be expected to be held to a higher standard.

 

 

I agree the bar is psychologically set higher by lecturers and classmates for a much younger student.

 

I would give your son a laptop, tons of free time and let him learn on his own. If he is a typical computer programmer, he'll hide away for hours (I know, not necessarily a good thing).

 

:iagree:

I crashed a few PCs, burnt out a hard disk and ran up the electricity bill though as a teenager by programming (debugging) through the night. Programming still is a marketable skill though.

 

Did you see the news article about the British teenager that sold his app to yahoo?

"Mr. D’Aloisio’s father, who works at Morgan Stanley, and his mother, a lawyer, had no special knowledge of technology. But they nurtured their son’s fascination with it and he started coding at age 12" (link)

[EKS]

My opinion is that if you're going to accelerate a kid, it should be through the *most* rigorous program you can put together, not an average one. One reason to do this (and there are many) is to ensure that a gifted kid ends up in a college with gifted peers. Most gifted students are going through school with their age cohort and in high school are taking honors and AP courses. It is important that the accelerated student be able (with a reasonable amount of work) to get an A in honors/AP level courses (four years prior to high school graduation) as this will keep him with his intellectual peers. If he can't maintain an A average across the board (in the case of whole grade acceleration), he shouldn't be accelerated.

[HS Mom in NC]

EKS wrote:

 

"Now, as a homeschooler, it is easy to accelerate where appropriate, but if you're talking about early college entry (and not just dual enrollment), then homeschooling isn't an option."

 

Please explain your reasoning for this in more detail. I know lots of homeschoolers that have done this without dual enrollment.

[Arcadia]

DS enjoys debate too and a class he took gave him a good amount of thinking skills practice for a while. He personally experienced what it is like to argue without solid facts and to avoid embarrassment, he learned to research and construct arguments better for the next time.

 

 

What class did your son take? My 7 year old is the one that can debate til the cows come home and loves chess. I'm on the lookout for classes for him to verbal spar with other kids.

[quark]

 

What class did your son take? My 7 year old is the one that can debate til the cows come home and loves chess. I'm on the lookout for classes for him to verbal spar with other kids.

 

 

It was an IRL class.

 

For those looking for online debate opportunities, I have bookmarked this for future use:

http://www.igiftedschool.org/archives.cfm/category/virtual-debate-club

[Nan in Mass]

Just thought I would post a few thoughts AS THEY APPLY TO MY SON, not as they apply to anybody else. He's just brightish and ... odd but not accelerated. Anyway, he is in 12th grade now and this is his third year of taking community college classes. In 10th, he took two easy classes (ones that didn't include lots of writing). In 11th, he took intro chem and pre-calc. These were essentially high school level classes. The chemistry turned out, because of the prof, to be the equivalent of a good honours high school chemistry class but without the honours students. In other words, lab partners burst into tears because they couldn't understand and lots of people struggled or flunked. The prof was really good or he wouldn't have been able to do anything but the basics. He offered extra credit enrichment events (like lectures and conventions) and managed to get a good bit of the extra, interesting stuff into the lectures despite his struggling students. If this had been an AP class at the high school, much of the same stuff would have been covered AND the students wouldn't have had to have so much of the lecture spent explaining the basics. The questions and speculations would have been more interesting (in theory). He also took pre-calc. Again, this was a high school level class being taught to lots of people who should have taken it in high school but somehow didn't. Most of them feared math. The prof covered the basics and covered them well, but there wasn't time for lots of interesting problem solving and extras, as there would have been if he'd taken the same class in the same grade (11th) in the high school with other students for whom this stuff was fairly easy. It was an entirely different experience than the one I had in public school and the one he'd previously had when we were doing NEM. This year, he is taking calc and calc-based physics. Half the students he started with at the beginning of the year are gone now. The prof has enough to do getting the rest of them through the class and has no time to answer my son's what-if questions. The class is no longer an easy A for my son but as long as he keeps up with the studying and homework and labs, it isn't hard, either. He is headed for engineering and I was afraid before he began the class that it was going to be inadequate and leave him with gaps and misconceptions and bad habits. This is a really important foundational class. Fortunately, that hasn't happened. The prof may not have the patience or time to answer his questions when they depart from or go beyond the subject matter, but she is doing an excellent job of teaching lab writing, problem solving, and good, neat work habits. It will be ok, I think. We lucked out. This could have been a big problem, though.

 

None of this would have happened if he had been with his peers taking AP and honours classes at our good local high school. But there would probably have been other problems which doing this avoided. I'm not saying I regret not sending him to high school. I am just trying to point out some of the disadvantages and give some of you with younger children some idea of some of the implications of some of the choices you have to make. Another thing we could have done is sign up for online AP classes. We thought about this and decided that the classroom experience was going to be more important for our particular children. We homeschool very loosely. Dumping them straight into 4-year university with no classroom experience would have been a bad idea, I think. My son might have been able to handle harder math problems but he had to learn how to take a test, how to study from a textbook, how to keep track of assignments, and even how to remember to put his name on the paper. Academic ability is only part of what makes a student able to handle college. My own particular son was better off waiting.

 

Next year, he will go away to college. Let me remind you of some of the things involved, in case you've forgotten lol. It involves being able to fend off drunk, beligerant friends of your roommate's. It involves being able to deal with adult level material in English. It involves being able to schedule a term paper. It involves making wise choices in the dining commons. It involves being able to take care of oneself when one is sick. It involves evaluating the driving of friends so you know which people are likely to kill you if you get into a car with them. It involves walking back across campus at midnight after studying late. At this point, I'm really, really, really glad that we decided to go wide when he was little, spending time doing chess and piano and several languages and art and gymnastics and having lots of time to do independent projects rather than accelerating him. The car issue alone makes my hair stand on end. This is my youngest we are talking about. His brothers have dented a number of cars and they are good drivers compared to their friends.

 

But as I said, this is MY child. YOUR child might be a totally different story. If he is PG, maybe he is adult enough to need to go to college early. There have been people here in the past who have had children like this. Jenny in FL is one. Her daughter went away to college very early. I remember her saying that her daughter badly needed the intellectual challenge that this involved. I've written all this out in case you have a more ordinary student, one more like mine, who bumbles himself through his community college classes, well able to get As but not quite organized or experienced or self-disciplined enough to do that consistently enough all the time. I suppose we could have managed him more and been more involved, but the idea is for him to learn to manage by himself. Not that we didn't help at first and occasionally thereafter. His father is doing his calculus with him right now, in fact. He could have gone to the tutoring center, but Dad is easier lol.

 

I haven't organized this very well. Sorry it is such a muddle. I'm recovering from a cold and my head is full of cotton. Not that I'm the best writer even when I am well...

 

Nan

[crazyforlatin]

There is an introductory course at Coursera, starting next month. High school math required, so I think that leaves us out.

 

https://www.coursera.org/course/interactivepython

 

We just started Scratch using this fun book: http://www.amazon.com/Super-Scratch-Programming-Adventure-Program/dp/1593274092

[EKS]

EKS wrote:

 

"Now, as a homeschooler, it is easy to accelerate where appropriate, but if you're talking about early college entry (and not just dual enrollment), then homeschooling isn't an option."

 

Please explain your reasoning for this in more detail. I know lots of homeschoolers that have done this without dual enrollment.

 

 

Sorry--that wasn't overly clear...

 

Here is what I meant: When a kid is vastly ahead in math, let's say, when we're homeschooling, it's easy to accelerate the math and do writing, let's say, at grade level (or whatever). But if you're wanting a kid to go to college early--college across the board, not just in math or whatever the kid is advanced in--he needs to be advanced across the board as well. So, sure, you can homeschool up to college entry, and you can homeschool the subjects that aren't at college level if you do a dual enrollment thing, but if the kid enters college full time those things aren't options.

 

And my overall point in my previous post was that when the kid goes to *real* college, it is important that it is with intellectual peers, and for a gifted kid those peers are going to be the ones who did honors/AP/IB/dual enrollment while in high school and *not* the ones who settled for an average high school experience.

[Rivka]

Nan, thank you so much for sharing your son's experiences. I have always wondered that about community college courses.

[Nan in Mass]

 

And my overall point in my previous post was that when the kid goes to *real* college, it is important that it is with intellectual peers, and for a gifted kid those peers are going to be the ones who did honors/AP/IB/dual enrollment while in high school and *not* the ones who settled for an average high school experience.

 

 

Or the ones who struggled in high school, struggled after high school, and are now valiantly struggling their way through community college with a job and a child. A shining example of hard work but not exactly intellectual peers.

 

I think part of what Kai is saying is that there are all sorts of colleges running from community colleges up through places like MIT and Stanford. If you have a PG child, then you probably want him (eventually) at a college which has a large enough group of very gifted students that they know how to teach them and have prof's that can challenge them. (This won't always happen - we had a friend who wasn't challenged at MIT - but at least there was plenty to do and he didn't scare the profs and he made like-minded friends.) I think Kai is saying (and I agree) that there are two extremes here, with a range of things in between. One is that you can send your very young child to one of the easy-to-get-into colleges just as soon as his academic skills reach the point where he can manage the output. Your child will be smarter than his professors and the whole rest of the student population. I would worry that that would be bad for his character, among other things. Although he would be learning new things, he might be the only one thinking past the basics and past not flunking the next test. The other extreme is that you can wait and send your child to one of the very tip top colleges later, after he has had time to develop his academic skills to a high level, taken AP classes and all the testing that the top colleges require, after he has had time to do some interesting things. Places like MIT and Stanford have enough tip top applicants to fill their seats several times over. That is after they eliminate anyone who hasn't developed into an interesting person or who can't prove (usually via tests like AP, IB, SAT, and SAT2s and challengine classes) that they have the academic skills to survive. It is incredibly competative and given a choice between a barely ready 10yo and an older student who is involved in some interesting research or inventions, I think they are likely to choose the older student unless that younger one is doing something very interesting as well.

 

There are, of course, lots of colleges between those two extremes and lots of ages between 10 and 18. It is tricky to find the right balance even if you are an ordinary parent considering ordinary colleges for an ordinary student. I just listened to a message on my answering machine from the financial aid department of a college that wants my child asking if the scholarship they offered is ok. I think they would probably offer more if he wanted to go there. He doesn't. If he went there, he would be a big fish in a small pond. He wants to be a medium fish in a medium pond. That is what we want for him, too, although it is going to be far more expensive sigh. (If he went to MIT, he would be a tiny fish in a very big pond lol.) In our case, there are several medium ponds and he wants to go to the one that offered the least money and his father is saying that this other medium one would be great and quite a bit cheaper. As I said, it is a tricky decision even for more ordinary students. If you have no money, you are probably going to have to settle for being a bigger fish in a littler pond, unless you are very very unusual indeed.

 

I hope this helps the original poster, who has little experience with the American college system.

 

Nan

[Nan in Mass]

Rivka -

 

We are lucky. Our community college is a good one. They very carefully coordinate their science and math classes because they have an engineering transfer program and a good nursing program. Even so, some of their engineering students have to retake some of their basics at their 4-year college because they weren't taught at the same level or missed some things. This depends on which 4-year college they transfer to. They try. Their calculus is taught in three semesters instead of the normal two because they try to cover all the topics their students might need for a variety of engineering programs. And it probably gives them more time to get their less-than-brilliant students enough practice. My son is definately challenged, but it tends not to be challenged because of the material - it tends to be challenged because of study skills and because of the way we homeschooled. For example, he didn't have high school chemistry or physics before diving into the college version. I would love to be able to compare our high school's AP science classes with my son's cc classes and see what the differences are. That would be interesting. In many wayw, the community college is the exactly the right place for my son right now. It is full of professors who are used to dealing with students who haven't had a standard US high school experience, who may have gaps in their basic knowledge, who don't necessarily have good study skills, who even might not have good English communication skills. My son was assigned a permanent lab partner this semester because he speaks enough French to help a new-to-the-US student, a situation which my son is happy about because normally the professor makes them switch off so nobody gets stuck permanently with the incompetent ones and as he put it, this student has a brain.

 

We are using the community college to build a ramp from our homeschool to university. We picked the type and number of the classes carefully, trying to build up slowly to a fuller schedule. I investigated the community college pretty carefully before we decided to send our children to take serious classes there. We had other choices. Our public school offered AP classes (or any other classes). There are online classes. We could have sent him to take classes at the local university or private college. We chose not to do online classes because I wanted my son to be responsible to somebody else and have a full classroom experience. We chose not to use the high school or the university because I didn't think my son had good enough study skills to survive science classes there and sending him there for math (and other classes) and someplace else for science, which I definately didn't want to teach at home, would have meant too much time in the car. (That is bad enough as it is.) We needed a class that covered lots of chemistry (first one he took) but that would be easy enough that he could develop his study skills. The college format, broken into semesters, the ability to drop classes or switch to auditing if you discover you are in over your head, tutoring centers, office hours, and teachers who didn't assume your study skills were prefect, looked like a better bet. So we sort of sacrificed math for science and classroom skills. And I am still losing sleep wondering if I did the right thing. I'll come back and tell you in a few years when we see how he manages at his university.

 

Open courseware was just getting started. If we'd had that option, I might have structured high school differently. Or I might not. What we did was pretty cool.

 

Nan

 

ETA - Another thing that kept me awake at night was that we chose community college classes instead of AP classes but I knew that the applicants to the colleges my son wanted were probably all going to have AP classes, at least in math and science. The colleges might or might not think highly of community college classes, depending on whether they happened to know anything about our particular community college. Even if they knew it was a fairly good one, they still might rather have AP tests because they make it easy to compare individual students by test score and choose the highest. We chose a rather risky path and it happened to work out, but that is another thing to consider, another thing that Kai mentioned.

[Nan in Mass]

Another factor in the whole early-college-or-not equation that I don't remember seeing discussed in this thread (maybe I missed it) is unschooling. You may have a student who is taking their academic skills and applying them to learning what THEY want to learn, inventing a better mouse trap, researching why the squirrels are getting smaller (making that up), running a business, building a new sort of computer, or finding a way to get clean water to the slums in Brazil, or whatever. In that case, sending them to college early and bringing their own projects to a screeching halt might be a bad idea. They might be better off doing high school at home as efficiently as possible (or in an unusual or lopsided way) and continuing to have lots of freedom to work on their own projects, undistracted by a new social environment and a full load of traditional classes. Or, on the other hand, they might need their college's particle accelerator to continue their project lol. Again, though, the timing can be tricky.

 

Another issue not mentioned yet (I think) is college sports. I think (double check) I've seen on the high school board that the NCAA, the people who regulate most of the college sports, allow students 4 years to play college sports. If you start college early having graduated from high school, that might cause problems. Or it might not. Just something to think about.

 

My one piece of advice, and I think this applies to everyone, even the pg's, is that you have to make sure that your child's world expands as the child grows. This doesn't always involve academic skills. For my children, this involved sending them off to travel the world.

 

Nan

[AnIslandGirl]

My one piece of advice, and I think this applies to everyone, even the pg's, is that you have to make sure that your child's world expands as the child grows. This doesn't always involve academic skills. For my children, this involved sending them off to travel the world.

Nan

 

This is huge! Having the book smarts is great, but having a world-view in addition to the intellectual ability will allow your child to soar. Wonderful advice!

[Arcadia]

My one piece of advice, and I think this applies to everyone, even the pg's, is that you have to make sure that your child's world expands as the child grows. This doesn't always involve academic skills. For my children, this involved sending them off to travel the world.

 

Nan

 

 

I agree. My boys had a culture shock last year when we went back Asia to visit relatives. It gave them the incentive to learn more languages and take the public transport everywhere. Even the airports are an interesting cultural experience. I do not wish for my kids to have a narrow world view.

[quark]

(cross sub-post)

Linking two other related discussions for future reference.

Early College and What After College?

S/O of Early College-How do you decide when your DS is ready for higher classes

OP, is it possible to add an "early college" tag to your post title too?

[Alira]

You've gotten some great advice and perspectives, but I thought I should add our experience so far, because your son sounds so much like my oldest was at that age. He was significantly ahead in math and science, very slightly advanced in everything else, and desperate to start taking college classes. For him, the science labs were the biggest attraction. After more than a year of going back and forth, we decided that dual enrollment at our state university was the best option. We don't have a community college nearby, or that would have been another good one.

 

The requirements for taking on-campus college classes early seem to vary a fair bit from school to school. In our case, the admissions website was very vague about admitting "high-ability high school students" for dual enrollment, so we set up an appointment to find out exactly what was required. They asked us for an unofficial transcript, but did not require SAT/ACT scores. After I explained what our oldest was working on at home, the admissions office wasn't worried at all that he wasn't technically a "high school student".

 

He took his first college classes (two semesters of chemistry) last year at 12, and three more this year (calc 3, chem, physics). The rest of his courses have been done at home, using mostly high school-level materials. He's taken one AP exam so far and will likely take a few more before we graduate him (tentatively at 16).

 

Hope this helps a little! Good luck!

Anne

[Dmmetler]

If you look at dual enrollment, check websites and see if you can find the person listed as the coordinator for things like Science fair, JSHS, and similar events that involve younger than college level students. Usually that's also the faculty member who works with the schools on getting high-ability high school students placed in STEMS classes, and there's a good possibility that they've seen talented homeschooled students before, particularly if the school runs JSHS preliminaries (JSHS is sponsored by the military, and is VERY homeschool friendly because the first round IS the regional level. ISEF tends to expect school-level events before regionals, and therefore is sometimes less friendly to homeschoolers).

[MASHomeschooler]

Thank you for the logic recommendations - some I haven't heard of, and some I have but wasn't sure about, plus some things I guess we are already doing. We aren't interested in early college, but this thread has been good for some less-discussed (that I've seen) things to do instead, and as I mentioned I've been thinking ahead quite a bit so it's been helpful for me. Hopefully it has been for the op too. Thanks.

[Katy]

Udacity is in the process of putting ALL the computer science courses you'd get in a bachelor's degree online, for free, to work through at your own pace. He can start that now. The problem he's going to reach, though, is that you need advanced math (Differential equations, linear algebra) to do advanced computer science. Comp Sci is truly a branch of applied mathematics. Point this out to him, have him work through the programming courses one at a time while doing double-fast math.

[Dmmetler]

One thing that you also might want to look at is auditing remotely. My DD did this, at age 8, for a Wildlife studies class, under an agreement with the professor (who we'd met at a herpetology society regional conference and was impressed by her). I think he's trying to find ways to make online learning work in his field, and DD is serving as a guinea pig to figure out what works and what doesn't. It's been good for her, and it's definitely sparked a desire to go to college sooner, rather than later. (And, at the same time, sparked hopes in this mommy that maybe we can meet her needs at home).