DS4 is shockingly good at Stack the Countries. Is this odd?

[drjuliadc]

Since school has been out my 4 year old has had greater access to an IPad than ever before. This is partly due to my overly distracted parenting, so that's not good. On the upside, he can locate all the countries in Asia, Africa, North America and South America with less than 3 mistakes per continent.

 

I'm wondering if this is super highly unusual or if the game is so reinforcing that any kid would eventually do that or come close. He is a very good reader, but I taught him that so I probably can't attribute that to any unusual ability. It was very, very easy to teach him though.

 

He has only had one week to really master this. Maybe two.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I don't think it is too odd.  He sounds like a bright boy who has found a game that is right up his alley. 

[Jackie]

Do you mean "is this crazy for a 4yo?" or "is this something I should take note of as a possible sign of giftedness"? They're very different questions.

 

I generally believe that kids who learn new information easily may be gifted. Kids who learn new information easily *and* can connect that information to novel situations are likely gifted. And then there are gifted kids who don't fit the typical profiles.

 

Mastering reading at 4 is not crazy unusual, but not typical. Mastering a game that requires a large number of facts is not crazy unusual, but not typical. Whether it "means" anything is a separate, debatable question.

[drjuliadc]

I thought there might be other people here who had the game and either they or their kids mastered it easily and I would know it is just a very compelling game for people to play who are interested in it.

 

I'm not that interested or good at Geography so it really shocked me to see him get so many right.

 

It used to seem impossible to me to solve Rubics cubes too, but there are lots of people and kids who just kept at it and solve it easily. It isn't that unusual to find them.

 

He's probably too little to know about giftedness. And I can't use the reading thing as a sign anyway since I explicitly set out to teach him very young.

 

I mentioned the reading thing because you have to read pretty well to play stack the countries independently and I didn't want anyone to think that part was An indicator of anything.

[SoCal_Bear]

Mine really enjoyed Stack the States and Stack the Countries a lot at that age. He was an early reader so that is key to the game. The questions do repeat so if you are playing enough and paying attention, you should be learning the correct answers over time. YKWIM?