All kids even out by third grade. Math subject too?

[Growingfun]

My boy is four and half years old. He has been an accelerated learner. He start to read when he was two. Now, he is a fluent reader at grade two level, and could read picture books for fun and information for hours by himself but does not want to read chapter books. He thinks they are dry and boring without colorful pictures. I do not push him in terms of reading at all.

 

His math skill started to emerge at the age of four.

I certainly encourge him to learn math. He can do double digit subtraction and addition with borrowing and grouping in his head, and is learning long multiplication and division. He also could do some pre-algebra questions involving negative number concepts.

 

The other day, I read a discussion about "Early readers average out by 3rd grade" - what's your take?"

http://forums.welltr...hats-your-take/

 

Does this also happen in math subject? If this is true, there is no reason for me teach him math though he told me he enjoys math more than reading.

[regentrude]

The "evening out" by 3rd grade is complete nonsense. Of course there are children who have just been pushed into a skill by being taught (whether that be math or reading) at an earlier age than normal without being smarter, and if they only receive the normal instruction afterward they will not progress any faster than the rest of the class. But gifted students who simply learn a lot faster - why should they "even out"? Why should a child who only needs half the average time to learn a new concept NOT progress faster and further, even beyond 3rd grade? I can't see the logic behind this argument.

 

This said: my kids were NOT early in reading OR in math, and I do not believe in early academics. DD entered K without knowing the alphabet and ended K reading on middle school level. DS never did a minute of math before school, but was ready for AoPS Algebra in 6th grade.

So, starting earlier does not guarantee that the child stays ahead, nor does it prevent the child from accelerating - but starting early is not necessary to be several grades accelerated either.

 

ETA: I would never hold a child back when he wanted to learn something, but I see no benefit in pushing a four year old to do math. Or any other academics, for that matter. What's the purpose?

[Arcadia]

The "evening out" by 3rd grade is complete nonsense. Of course there are children who have just been pushed into a skill by being taught (whether that be math or reading) at an earlier age than normal without being smarter, and if they only receive the normal instruction afterward they will not progress any faster than the rest of the class.

....

So, starting earlier does not guarantee that the child stays ahead, nor does it prevent the child from accelerating - but starting early is not necessary to be several grades accelerated either.

 

:iagree:

Hothousing is prevalent here at the valley and probably there is hothousing everywhere else. Kumon and Sylan tutoring at three years old is very common. I don't blame the public school teachers for saying that kids even out by third grade because it happens. On entering kindergarten in public school, the curve is very skewed towards those who went to an academic prep preschool or tuition center as they can already read, write a short paragraph and do math. By 3rd grade, the "late" readers and math kids has caught up and the bell curve has normalised somewhat. I treat the "even out" as going from a skewed model towards a bell curve model rather than a flat curve model. There will still be kids who need more help and kids who are advanced at 3rd grade. Standardised tests are norm, it would be weird to have every 3rd grader at the same percentile.

 

Also for public school, my older tested out of reading at 2nd grade. my younger is near the ceiling last year and will probably test out this year too when he is in 2nd grade. So basically there is no tests suitable for them at 3rd grade for reading comprehension in a school setting. The one the schools used was a standardized test for K-8 reading comprehension so they just give a harder passage until they test out (passed the 8th grade test). For math, the teachers will just test until the kids exceed state level. They will not usually test beyond that unless there is a parent request for grade skip.

 

I was public schooled. That did not prevent me from reading my older cousins high school textbooks for any subject after school. My aunt was my parents free afterschool babysitter for me.

[kiana]

Children who read early because they were pushed even out when the others get instruction.

 

Children who read early because they are in the gifted range are unlikely to even out unless they give up on school.

[msjones]

Depends on the kid. (Like most things...) Some early readers will become outstanding readers. Some won't.

[azucena]

By 3rd grade, the "late" readers and math kids has caught up and the bell curve has normalised somewhat. I treat the "even out" as going from a skewed model towards a bell curve model rather than a flat curve model. There will still be kids who need more help and kids who are advanced at 3rd grade.

 

 

This makes sense to me. I see a similar phenomenon with ds8's friends - he was an early reader, whereas some of his buddies are just now able to tackle chapter books. A better statement might be "the range of normal looks a lot narrower at 3rd grade than it does in 1st." That still leaves from for the two ends of the bell curve.

[quark]

I have one child who spent only a couple of weeks in a formal school setting so I don't have much solid data or experience on that front to give you. What I can see is that all this talk of evening out etc totally ignores things like a child's ability to drive himself to learn, a child's love for a subject, a child's inability to take ridiculously diluted materials etc. What may look like evening out might actually just be intense boredom with the repetition and nonsense that gets passed off as math education/ reading materials in most schools. I was a kid who regularly zoned out in school. I zoned out so much that I don't even have memories of the academic things I was supposed to have learned. I only remember recess times, feeding pigeons or staring at this beautiful, wonderful tree in the courtyard and playing hopscotch and being bullied. He he, no wonder I was written off as not being very bright!

 

If you continue to feed your child what he wants to learn, I really don't see how it won't help. You work with your child because you want to, because he loves it, because you want to infect him with these wonderful facets of life called curiosity and discovery. If you are doing it to intentionally accelerate him, it is possible that you won't eventually see the results you want to see. But when it comes from within the child, I really don't think anything can hold him back, unless there are some obvious and serious learning differences involved.

[melbotoast]

 

Does this also happen in math subject? If this is true, there is no reason for me teach him math though he told me he enjoys math more than reading.

 

 

There is no reason to push him, but I think if he enjoys math that is a valid reason for teaching him. Even if he does "slow down" later, that doesn't mean you can't have fun with it now. But there are many on this board who did not experience the "evening out" effect you are asking about.

[Violet Crown]

As part of my youngest's therapy for enabling her to speak (she could process language sounds receptively, but not expressively), we used large textured letters as multi-sensory aids, associating the shape and texture with sounds. When her brain finally figured out how to produce the sounds it wanted, as an unexpected corollary she began to sound out simple words quite fluently; like she had had one of those intensive phonics courses for teaching babies to read. But though she could read and genuinely understand beginning readers, she stayed on that same beginning level for a couple of years, and only recently began moving forward in reading ability.

 

So from our unintended experiment with one child, at least, I would agree that children pushed to read early are going to end up at their own right level.

[beaners]

My boy is four and half years old. He has been an accelerated learner. He start to read when he was two. Now, he is a fluent reader at grade two level, and could read picture books for fun and information for hours by himself but does not want to read chapter books. He thinks they are dry and boring without colorful pictures. I do not push him in terms of reading at all.

 

His math skill started to emerge at the age of four.

I certainly encourge him to learn math. He can do double digit subtraction and addition with borrowing and grouping in his head, and is learning long multiplication and division. He also could do some pre-algebra questions involving negative number concepts.

 

The other day, I read a discussion about "Early readers average out by 3rd grade" - what's your take?"

http://forums.welltr...hats-your-take/

 

Does this also happen in math subject? If this is true, there is no reason for me teach him math though he told me he enjoys math more than reading.

 

This is easily 2nd and 3rd grade math. Do you anticipate your son regressing between now and the time he hits third grade age? That should give you your answer.

[Dmmetler]

Well, my DD really, really jumped ahead in Math at age 7. She'd be in 3rd grade by local cut-offs this year, and is working on AOPS PreA and LOF Algebra. She was on about a 2nd grade level in math at the end of K, so if anything, she's gotten MORE out of sync by 3rd, not less. I do think she's evened out more on reading simply because, as I said several years back in that thread, she has nowhere else to go-she can read just about anything, so it's really only developing the content-specific vocabulary in specific topics right now, which is

[mathnerd]

In my opinion, math skills are like any other skill. Let me compare them with piano playing and tennis just for illustrating the point. If you make a "daily practice habit", then the progress will be exponential in both piano and tennis - so, if a child wanted to be a tennis player who would be able to serve hard and consistently, imagine the hours upon hours of practice to get there. Similarly, for piano practice, if the child practices every day of the week, the next week's class will be easier to handle and the incremental learning in the next lesson is within their reach - but if there is no consistency in learning, it is easy to become that kid who dreads the piano lesson and begs to stop going. The main factor is to keep the child motivated (by mentoring in a manner appropriate to that child - making it fun, incentives or whatever works).

 

In the same way, if your child consistently learns math and practices enough of it to retain and apply that knowledge, there is no way the skill will even out in the 3rd grade or middle school or whatever. Because there is an exponential growth in learning and understanding math concepts, a child ahead of her peers at grade 2 will still be learning ahead of her peers in grade 3 if the learning is consistent and they are mentored correctly. Now, if the child is mathematically inclined (even gifted in this field?), then the chances are high that the child would be more interested in participating and learning that subject at an accelerated level to keep the momentum going. If the child shows an interest in painting and dance and no interest in math, then it might be hard to keep that momentum going and the word "hothousing" is used for accelerating students in such scenarios - and there is a possibility of such students evening out eventually when the interest and effort fade.

 

PS: I have a strong mathematical background and come from a family of mathematicians. We are not gifted in math, but all of us are highly interested to keep the learning going and none of us "evened out" until we left college :)

[Barbara H]

You've gotten lots of good feedback. To me "evening out" seems more like a possibility if gifted learning is just viewed as a matter of speed - getting there first by grasping concepts at a younger age. While the gifted learner likely has that element of speed, that isn't all of it. I would look more at the qualitative difference. Is the student not just learning computation but do you see that on his own he's thinking about math and making mathematical observations? Does he figure out connections and seem to intuitively have a good idea what the next step might be before he is taught. Also look at stuff like observing angles, good with games and puzzles, interest in charts and graphs, figuring out systems for money and telling time, good at estimating and explaining the logic behind the estimate, etc.

[Lucy the Valiant]

As a former high school teacher, I can assure you that just because a group of kids graduate in the same year by NO means indicates that they are "even." :)

[ebunny]

Re: the 'even' out phenomenon, IME.

 

My homeschooled DD (8) is now at a mainstream school. Her teachers say that she is 'average'.

 

What they do not know, is that once Dd gets home, she reads books that she is not allowed to read at school.

She works on some things that will be seen as 'weird' hobbies by her peers...origami, kakuro, sudoku etc.

The academic gap between her peers and herself keeps increasing every few months, but her teacher does not realise it because Dd keeps her abilities well hidden in the classroom environment.

 

It is a price DD is happy to pay because she really enjoys some activities that the school offers, namely art, sports and dance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mathnerd]

Re: the 'even' out phenomenon, IME.

 

My homeschooled DD (8) is now at a mainstream school. Her teachers say that she is 'average'.

 

What they do not know, is that once Dd gets home, she reads books that she is not allowed to read at school.

She works on some things that will be seen as 'weird' hobbies by her peers...origami, kakuro, sudoku etc.

The academic gap between her peers and herself keeps increasing every few months, but her teacher does not realise it because Dd keeps her abilities well hidden in the classroom environment.

 

It is a price DD is happy to pay because she really enjoys some activities that the school offers, namely art, sports and dance.

Your post strikes a chord! In my experience so far, a teacher (even ones who are labeled as "gifted" education specialist) has no time, interest or the bandwidth to evaluate the depth of a child's talent. It is normal in a classroom of 25-30 kids of differing abilities where one teacher is expected to teach multiple subjects as well as supervise recess etc.

[Soror]

I always finds these conversations interesting as the mother of a late bloomer. I think that there are several dynamics at play in this idea. First, are we talking about gifted or just "bright" kids, how gifted? My son started behind most kids that I know, quite behind some. Until last summer we were just slowly moving along, however his reading level has increased 4 grade levels in the last year. I'd imagine that other late bloomers are similar. Learning comes in leaps sometimes and sometimes stalls. I think for those truly gifted that those jumps continue and likely the disparity only widens. I think there are many that read early though that aren't necessarily gifted and of course those that read late that are gifted. K level isn't a really accurate assessment time from what I've read. Personally, I have no idea of where my own will end up. I do feel blessed to be hs'ing so I can meet him at whatever level he (and the rest of mine) is/are presently.

 

Of course my own experience is very limited. I just see that nearly all those kids that were ahead of ds aren't anymore. It was a nice humbling experience for me though and a lesson to focus on my own and what they need.

 

I do wonder do most kids progress a grade level at a time? It seems for reading at least that often kids "take off" at some point or another so comparing levels at young ages is often quite fruitless.

[beaners]

I always finds these conversations interesting as the mother of a late bloomer. I think that there are several dynamics at play in this idea. First, are we talking about gifted or just "bright" kids, how gifted? My son started behind most kids that I know, quite behind some. Until last summer we were just slowly moving along, however his reading level has increased 4 grade levels in the last year. I'd imagine that other late bloomers are similar. Learning comes in leaps sometimes and sometimes stalls. I think for those truly gifted that those jumps continue and likely the disparity only widens. I think there are many that read early though that aren't necessarily gifted and of course those that read late that are gifted. K level isn't a really accurate assessment time from what I've read. Personally, I have no idea of where my own will end up. I do feel blessed to be hs'ing so I can meet him at whatever level he (and the rest of mine) is/are presently.

 

Of course my own experience is very limited. I just see that nearly all those kids that were ahead of ds aren't anymore. It was a nice humbling experience for me though and a lesson to focus on my own and what they need.

 

I do wonder do most kids progress a grade level at a time? It seems for reading at least that often kids "take off" at some point or another so comparing levels at young ages is often quite fruitless.

 

 

I think a lot of this conversation depends on what we are comparing to. If we were to rank 30 children in their reading or math abilities in kindergarten and then 3rd grade, obviously there would be a lot of children changing relative position within the class. But if we are comparing an individual child against the expected output for a particular grade, I think it's equally clear that their movement will be forward in general. We aren't shocked by a child hitting a wall, but we would be if the child loses skills without some trauma occurring. So your late reader may surpass my early reader, but if my early reader is already well beyond the third grade expectation, I don't think she's going to lose those skills when she gets to that age. They'll both be above that level.

 

I don't like that the existence of late bloomers is used to deny early bloomers access to stimulating material. (Not saying you are doing this!) Even if a child won't be the best reader or math student in a class once the late bloomers "catch up," they still have the right to learn things that they're interested in, rather than being expected to tread water or stagnate until that magical third grade age, don't they?

[mathwonk]

I think I agree with others that "evening out" is a phenomenon more likely produced by a classroom setting. There the teacher has an incentive to have all children at the same level to make teaching them as a group easier. I feel guilty when I recall all the times I ignored the brightest child in a class because I had so many others to try to bring up to speed. This is a primary advantage of homeschooling, being able to teach the child when that child is ready.

 

I have also read research on gifted education this conversation reminds me of, that even bright motivated children in schools tend to lose interest in learning by the fourth grade. (It happened to me.) This is to me a likely result of denying stimulation to the ones who were early learners. A child who wants to learn a topic is a blessing to a teacher, and that is the moment at which to offer it.

 

I recall the time our child enrolled in second grade in a well regarded school, and as preparation we made sure he knew his multiplication tables up to 12. On returning home he related, laughing, that in that school they learned one times table per month, and that month were starting with the zeros table! The "evening out" phenomenon thus started on day one.

[Soror]

beaners- I was just saying that perhaps some of that phenomenon is not that the gifted regress, which is obviously ludicrous, but that other learners can jump ahead while some might slow down or stall. Just because my ds is now ahead of his same aged cousins doesn't mean he will be next year. I wish I knew where he was going as it would make my life easier but I just haven't a clue.

 

I think it is of course optimal that all kids are taught at their level, to their potential, that is part of why I homeschool :) I think it is unrealistic to expect that to occur perfectly in a ps classroom. I think as well that it sucks for the early gifted kids to be held back it also sucks for those late bloomers to classified as slow from the start without being given a chance to reach their potential as well.

[beaners]

beaners- I was just saying that perhaps some of that phenomenon is not that the gifted regress, which is obviously ludicrous, but that other learners can jump ahead while some might slow down or stall. Just because my ds is now ahead of his same aged cousins doesn't mean he will be next year. I wish I knew where he was going as it would make my life easier but I just haven't a clue.

 

I think it is of course optimal that all kids are taught at their level, to their potential, that is part of why I homeschool :) I think it is unrealistic to expect that to occur perfectly in a ps classroom. I think as well that it sucks for the early gifted kids to be held back it also sucks for those late bloomers to classified as slow from the start without being given a chance to reach their potential as well.

 

We absolutely agree! I think a large part of the problem is comparing students to each other instead of to the benchmarks they've reached. The nature of the classroom does limit what students at every point on the spectrum are able to achieve.

 

I think it's also telling to see statements like this one in the OP.

 

Does this also happen in math subject? If this is true, there is no reason for me teach him math though he told me he enjoys math more than reading.

 

Why is there no reason to teach a child something he enjoys? Frankly, the child's enjoyment is reason enough for me to justify teaching it. I think this kind of argument comes up a lot with young-ish children, both early and late bloomers. If they like something - I say go with it. :)

[Arcadia]

Why is there no reason to teach a child something he enjoys? Frankly, the child's enjoyment is reason enough for me to justify teaching it. I think this kind of argument comes up a lot with young-ish children, both early and late bloomers. If they like something - I say go with it. :)

 

I am wondering how the OP defines teach.

When any of my neighbors ask me if I teach a subject to my kids, they are thinking of curriculum based teaching. It was funny because a neighbor asked long ago if I teach my kids the multiplication table. I said yes thinking that I did teach. The next question was what textbooks, workbooks did I use (specifically which math textbook or kumon workbooks) and I didn't use any. I just taught verbally or draw on blank pieces of paper.

So if OP was asking if she need to research and buy math curriculum to teach her child at the child's level, than it is really to each his/her own. If it is about whether she should just teach her child as the child ask about math ideas, than certainly go ahead and feed the child's interest.

[gracyomalley]

Just to be a bit of a wrench in the system, I do think that (with the exception of highly gifted kids), there is a time when those early learners sometimes seem to "stall". A 3 year old who teaches herself to read and write "appears" quite bright...however, when that kid is in 5th grade, still scoring in the upper percentiles on tests, but grappling with middle school level work and higher reading levels, she may seem "stuck" in the areas she hasn't matured enough for...and to a teacher of 30 in a classroom, the subtle differences between that kid and the other "successful" students will not be apparent, especially with "common core" and multiple choice testing...that this kid now can read at the 12+ grade level will not be apparent if she is working on diligence in mastering science lab write ups, etc....the real question I wonder about is how to support this child THROUGH the challenge/tedious time while still challenging the intellect....

 

this year, for better or worse, I actually dropped my middle 2 "levels" in math, because she kept achieving only "partial mastery" in pre-algebra....so she has done all of TT5 in 2 months, will do TT 6 similarly, and TT 7 this year....possibly the pre-algebra as well. She knows I don't think its the best math, and that she needs to be ready for more rigorous algebra by 8th grade - but for once she is happily doing several lessons a day, not making careless mistakes, and not arguing....while reading high school level literature for fun in her free time....she has always scored great on conceptual math - way above grade level, but never got good at being careful and complete...returning to easy stuff but having a high work load/expectation of high scores was her choice....I think in a class room this would be interpreted as "evening out" but I still think she'll be able to do well with higher math at a relatively young age...we shall see (and she's only gifted by test scores, not highly....

[boscopup]

I don't think a gifted kid will "even out" in 3rd grade. I just had a 3rd grader this past year. He finished up elementary math that year. He'll be doing prealgebra in 4th. That doesn't sound like he "evened out", does it? He learned a lot of math in preschool/K via discussions - he talked about numbers a lot and figured out things like multiplication. We had a brief discussion on negative numbers when the topic came up one day at age 5 (2 of my kids have done this at the same age, so I guess that's a good age to intro it). We didn't do math curriculum or anything like that. He actually resisted any attempts to formally "teach" him anything at age 4. :) But he did learn to read on his own and do math such that when he got to K at school, he was very bored. That boredom continued in 1st grade (and was made worse by the "party" aspect of K being gone), and then we started homeschooling so he could go at his own pace. If he were in school still, he'd be doing Saxon 5/4 this coming year instead of prealgebra. That doesn't mean that he would have been stuck at 4th grade level math though. It just means that's what he would be doing in school. At home, I think he would still progress as he had been. Learning doesn't stop just because you're not actively teaching it. ;)

 

I think the "evening out" thing is not necessarily talking about truly gifted kids. I think it's talking about kids on either end of "normal". For example, it's normal for kids to learn to blend words between the ages of 4 and 6. The kid that learns at 4 and the kid that learns at 6 may look exactly the same at age 8. I'm actually seeing that in my house right now. Last night, my just-turned-4-year-old was reading a Dr. Seuss book on his own, and he needed very little help. This was the first book my oldest read at age 4.5. Meanwhile, my 6.5 year old can just now read the book also (with less help than the 4 year old needs). I will not be surprised if 2 years from now, my 6.5 year old can read anything. He is a "late bloomer" compared to his brothers. Does it mean he's less smart? Nope. In fact, I would not be surprised if his IQ was higher than his older brother. The things he thinks about and the connections he makes kind of scares me sometimes. :lol: He's just not racing through curriculum at a young age. He definitely learns in leaps and bounds. He'll seem "behind" for a while, then something clicks and suddenly he's jumped ahead of the "norm". Reading will likely be like that also (it was for my dad, and my son is a lot like my dad as a child). Then there is my youngest child who could blend at age 3 and was able to read a bit during that year, but he really didn't jump ahead, so he'll likely end up reading just as well at the same ages that my oldest did, even though the oldest didn't read at all until 4.5 (he just started out at a mid-first grade level and was mid-2nd grade level 6 months later when he started K at school). So yeah, by age 8, I think my kids will all probably be in roughly the same place as each other in the areas of math and reading. Some have done things very differently in the preschool years, but they are "evening out" with each other (likely all being gifted). Does that mean they're evening out with average kids in a classroom? Nope. Clearly my oldest hasn't. He keeps plowing forward. But you can see from my example how kids that are likely roughly the same IQ (siblings are usually pretty close) can start out very different in the preschool ages and "even out" with each other by 3rd grade, so kids that have average IQ would probably "even out" with other kids of average IQ in a classroom setting. That's not the gifted kids evening out though. The gifted kids keep plowing forward. Then you also add in the late bloomer gifted kids, who also plow forward.

 

So yeah, I wouldn't worry about your child regressing at age 8 in math, reading, or any other subject. ;)

[Little Women]

Learning does not take place evenly. All children will have spurts and stalls, some longer and some shorter, especially in skill areas like reading or math. However, over time, a child who is generally 2 years ahead in a subject will, given appropriate teaching and exposure, continue to be generally 2 years ahead of peers. (The exception to this would be if they have a disability--some kids, eg, can learn to read easily with phonics, but may stall out when reading changes from decoding to comprehension.)

 

A child who starts adding at 3yo may fly through arithmetic by about 10yo. Then they may get stuck on algebra, and "stall" there for awhile. However, chances are, they'll also be ready to start algebra by 11 or 12, still 2-3 years ahead of the time most kids are ready to tackle algebra. The parent may think, "oh, they are not as gifted in this area as I thought," but in reality, they may still be very far ahead, just needing a little break at their current place for awhile.

[SnegurochkaL]

My son started doing math/logic books when he just turned 2. I was reading and translating to him and he was just getting the right answers. He also started talking in French being only 2 before he actually could built long sentences in English. By the age 4 he finished Russian kindergarten books which would be an equivalent of 1 grade Singapore math. Then he switched his love to science and history like he had already achieved a milestone. If he continued working with the same pace he would be finishing Singapore 6 or starting AOPS pre-algebra being only 6 years old. I didn't push him to stay focused on math, just letting him to learn what he wanted to. He is not a fluent reader yet and have some "lazy speech/ word pronunciation" issue, but I am not really worry about it. He spent 10 days working on 2nd grade Geometry book which dealt with 3D shapes, rotations etc. Now he is working on 4th grade book as fast as I am translating problems from Russian.

I think if you let your child to focus on a subject/books he desire it is much better then "pulling his ears" into something he is not interested in.

P.S. I never tested my kids on gifteness, even I know they are(at least first two), but it doesn't matter in homeschool setting. You will try to do the best for him.