Should I push 6 yr in math?

[Mommyof1]

She is currently in Kindergarten and doing Horizon Math K. She finds it easy and is done with a lesson in minutes. I rarely have to teach a concept she just gets it. She says she likes it easy and doesn't want harder work. Refuses doing more then 1 lesson a day. She would rather play so I haven't pushed it since she is young. We do math a couple times a week.

I checked Horizon Math 1st grade and she knows about 60% of it.  Not sure if I should just teach her the other 40% then get her 2nd grade or just let her go her way and move slow.

If she was older I wouldn't feel torn about it but I don't want to miss any foundational thing that might mess her up later.

Am I over thinking it?

 

[wendyroo]

Personally, my K level math goal is about 15 minutes of math daily with at least some of it stretching the child's brain a bit.

If it is really that easy and taking her that little time, then, yes, I would make a change.  Either start supplementing Horizon K, or skip her to Horizon 1 and let her speed through the topics she already knows, or maybe get a Math Mammoth blue book that covers any first grade topics she doesn't know and then jump her to second.  It also might be that Horizon isn't the right curriculum for her; maybe something a little more conceptually oriented would offer her a bit more challenge...my first choice is always going deeper and broader (aka going sideways) rather than moving ahead too soon.

Wendy

[SKL]

If she doesn't want to do more lessons, maybe add in math games / living math at another time of day.

[Ellie]

1 hour ago, Mommyof1 said:

Am I over thinking it?

 

Yes, you are overthinking it. 🙂

I cannot imagine something taught to a five-year-old that would be so foundational that it would obliviate the child's success at math when she's  eight or nine or 16.

[MerryAtHope]

I probably wouldn't change anything. Horizons has a solid sequence, and right now your daughter enjoys it and has a perfectly age appropriate desire to play :-). You could add on more work or harder work and make her hate math instead, or you could just keep going, and let her enjoy her success. 

[silver]

I'd say for K she's fine doing it the way she is. If it bothers you, change her to doing math by time rather than lesson when you start 1st grade. She may wind up flying through the 1st grade material, but that's fine. Just move her on to 2nd grade books when she finishes the 1st grade books. Doing it by time also ensures that when she hits new material that takes more work on her part, you won't be pushing her faster than she's capable of. 

[Another Lynn]

I wouldn't do more than 1 lesson at a time, but I would gradually get to where you're doing math everyday.  

[8filltheheart]

I have taught Horizons math to all 8 of my kids. 10 mins for a K math lesson is pretty typical.

(My kindergarteners only spent about a total of 60 to 90 mins on seatwork.) Some of my kids have wanted to do more math at that age and would just sit there and do pg after pg.  But, equally, I didn't even do k with our autistic ds. He jumped straight into the 1st grade text after postponing school until 1st.  (He was severely adhd and sitting still was excruitiating for him)

One of my kids skipped the 2nd grade text. ( He is gifted in math and was doing alg by age 10.) My current 3rd grader is in the 5th grade texts. She is one who flies through and does more pgs bc she wants to.

Fwiw, there is no reason to force them to do more. If they want to, go for it. But a Ker wanting to play is absolutely normal. By the end of the 6th grade text, my kids have been solid and all of them have been ready for alg no later than 8th grade (several earlier.) 

Edited March 10, 2019 by 8FillTheHeart

[Hunter]

Sometimes I like to do things that are very very very hard and slow for me. Sometimes I do not like to do things that are easy and fast for me. The difficulty and speed don't have much to do with my desire or need to do things. 

I don't believe that everyone must work as hard as they can at everything. I like to get what I do not like out of the way quickly, so I can pour myself into what I do like that is also so hard it makes me cry and sweat and sometimes even bleed.

Education is supposed to improve our quality of life, not hurt us. Sometimes it hurts and sometimes we choose that, but ... life is so very short and so very hard. If we are blessed to be good at something we hate, how awesome that we can just get it done and over, so we can SPEND our precious and limited moments on this earth on something else.

[Mommyof1]

Thank you all for responding.  

We all came down with the flu and we are currently miserable.

[wendyroo]

7 hours ago, Hunter said:

Sometimes I like to do things that are very very very hard and slow for me. Sometimes I do not like to do things that are easy and fast for me. The difficulty and speed don't have much to do with my desire or need to do things. 

I don't believe that everyone must work as hard as they can at everything. I like to get what I do not like out of the way quickly, so I can pour myself into what I do like that is also so hard it makes me cry and sweat and sometimes even bleed.

Education is supposed to improve our quality of life, not hurt us. Sometimes it hurts and sometimes we choose that, but ... life is so very short and so very hard. If we are blessed to be good at something we hate, how awesome that we can just get it done and over, so we can SPEND our precious and limited moments on this earth on something else.

I would view a 6 year old saying she only likes fast, easy math, similarly to her saying she only likes vanilla ice cream.  It's not the end of the world, and I'm certainly not going to force feed a child other varieties of ice cream, but OTOH, I'm also not going to stop offering other flavors just because she announces she only likes vanilla.

I don't think of stimulating, challenging math as something that "hurts".  I think we do our children a huge disservice when we treat it like unpleasant medicine that has to be gagged down instead of a buffet of rich and interesting ice cream flavors to be sampled and savored.

I am NOT saying that I think it would be advantageous to force feed this child 2nd grade math for an hour a day.  Of course not!!  However, I think her life might be enriched (even if she doesn't know it), by supplementing with some fun math that actually makes her think.  Read some living math books, play around with the Miquon red book and cuisenaire rods, experiment with an abacus/geoboard/tangrams/balance scale/pattern blocks, take turns making up tricky word problems to solve together, play math board and card games, etc.

Wendy

[TracyP]

I would definitely not push her ahead in Horizons. She is enjoying math and doing well with it. I have learned (the hard way) to only push my kids when they request the challenge or are bored/unhappy with the normal progression. This might be your dd when she is 9 or 15; don't feel like this needs to be your goal with a 6yo.

What I would do - I would be doing math 5 days a week. She will start to hit new material sooner without skipping books. ALso, I would add some challenge in a just for fun way. Make up story problems when you are in the car, play math games, ask her to be your teacher. My kids love that stuff and it is a great way to challenge (and even introduce new concepts) them without them ever realizing it.

P.s. I hope you all recover quickly and feel better soon!

[73349]

It's fine for a Ker to be done with math in minutes, but do skip her ahead to lessons where she will actually engage and learn something. Not having to pay attention and think is a habit to avoid developing!

[Hunter]

Why must a person be pushed at everything she is good at it? Why can't a person choose to meet the requirements, but not surpass them? At 6 or 60? There are things I would not let a child choose. But children are first and foremost PEOPLE. Being pushed harder, willy nilly, at anything and everything that comes easy is not what I would do to any person. I cannot advocate meeting all success with more work. If I were going to push a person to harder math, I'd need a SPECIFIC goal and a good REASON for that goal.

Mommyof1, feel better soon! Some of what I am posting is general conversation and NOT directed at YOU. I think the question you posed is an interesting question in GENERAL. 

[wendyroo]

2 hours ago, Hunter said:

Why must a person be pushed at everything she is good at it? Why can't a person choose to meet the requirements, but not surpass them? At 6 or 60? There are things I would not let a child choose. But children are first and foremost PEOPLE. Being pushed harder, willy nilly, at anything and everything that comes easy is not what I would do to any person. I cannot advocate meeting all success with more work. If I were going to push a person to harder math, I'd need a SPECIFIC goal and a good REASON for that goal.

Mommyof1, feel better soon! Some of what I am posting is general conversation and NOT directed at YOU. I think the question you posed is an interesting question in GENERAL. 

Philosophically, I don't consider easy "math" that doesn't actually require much thought to be math at all.  Math is a skill subject, and while accurate, efficient arithmetic calculations are skills, they are not ones that I particularly value for their own sake.  Calculators and computers will always be faster and more accurate than people for straight arithmetic.  No, the skills that I want to teach via math lessons are problem solving, perseverance, organization, flexible thinking, etc.  So in my mind, if a lesson is so easy for a student that it does not require any of those skills, then it has not been a successful math lesson.  At that point, I would call it arithmetic drill, which I do think has value, but not as a substitute for thought-provoking math.

Wendy

[8filltheheart]

4 hours ago, square_25 said:

Personally, I push in math and reading and writing because they open doors and are prerequisites to other experiences. I’m not sure what I’d do if my daughter didn’t thrive under these conditions, but she does.

Besides, she gets a ton of unstructured time and lots of choice about her activities even with the stuff that’s not optional.

 

55 minutes ago, wendyroo said:

Philosophically, I don't consider easy "math" that doesn't actually require much thought to be math at all.  Math is a skill subject, and while accurate, efficient arithmetic calculations are skills, they are not ones that I particularly value for their own sake.  Calculators and computers will always be faster and more accurate than people for straight arithmetic.  No, the skills that I want to teach via math lessons are problem solving, perseverance, organization, flexible thinking, etc.  So in my mind, if a lesson is so easy for a student that it does not require any of those skills, then it has not been a successful math lesson.  At that point, I would call it arithmetic drill, which I do think has value, but not as a substitute for thought-provoking math.

Wendy

While I do not follow the position being presented by Hunter, I did want to comment on these posts in this thread.  Horizons lessons at this age are short and simple. (So are SM lessons at this stage, for that matter.....even simpler than Horizons.) I personally do not believe that kindergarteners need to be pushed academically (or that pushing kindergarteners actually leads to any long-term gain.) I equally believe that fact that Horizons' simple lessons do equip students for mathematical problem-solving.

Just in case the OP is concerned that her child is going to somehow be academically hurt by her student's easy mastery of Horizons K.

(I have never "pushed" any of my kids in anything.  I actually take the approach of working at their speed and level. For a 6 yr old, I would definitely rather have them have confidence and feel successful than anything else.)

[Hunter]

There have been many studies that concluded that work and problem-solving are learned better from physical work, not academic work. I think I first read about this in the introduction of a College Latin textbook.

Curriculum is often an artificial activity. It is seldom as real as play. Play is the work of young children and animals. If we substitute too much curriculum for play, we can do more harm than good.

There are people who can talk and write about this so much more eloquently than I can.

[8filltheheart]

10 hours ago, square_25 said:

 

You can have curriculum and play both. I certainly do. 

Mathematics is not a natural activity that any human child picks up (unlike language, for example). I have no reason to assume that if I let my daughter simply play, she'll pick up mathematical habits of thought. They need to be inculcated. 

By the way, that doesn't mean that mathematics isn't an enjoyable activity. I'm a mathematician and I'm very grateful to the people who taught me mathematics as a child and exposed me to the beauty of mathematical thought. 

I really don't want to engage in this conversation, but the bolded is stated as an absolute (any human child). I wonder if you really believe that humans do not actually naturally pick up math?

 A toddler playing with objects puts them in perfectly arranged rows of 4s. Kids playing with toys equally divide the number amg them (3 girls with 9 barbies and each ends up playing with 3 dolls.) Kids recognizing patterns in nature.

An alternative view to inculcated is nurtured. Use what they are doing and observing in play as a starting point for asking questions and discovering what they already intuitively understand. There is more than one path forward to similar goals.

[HomeAgain]

11 hours ago, square_25 said:

 

You can have curriculum and play both. I certainly do. 

Mathematics is not a natural activity that any human child picks up (unlike language, for example). I have no reason to assume that if I let my daughter simply play, she'll pick up mathematical habits of thought. They need to be inculcated. 

By the way, that doesn't mean that mathematics isn't an enjoyable activity. I'm a mathematician and I'm very grateful to the people who taught me mathematics as a child and exposed me to the beauty of mathematical thought. 

Well,  not exactly right here.
Mathematics is a language of patterns.  Children start to pick these up unconsciously and don't need every detail pointed out to them - when they are ready, they get it.  They begin to understand how we count, and how we group, and make groups based on what they can see easily (nothing more than 5).  It is inherent.  A good curriculum will simply help that along.  Every program we've gravitated to works on that principle (Montessori, MUS, Right Start, MEP..)  Right now we're using Gattegno and half the first book is nothing but play.  Playing with colors and sizes and patterns, letting the kids build and describe what they build, playing games..by the second book the subtle lessons in the first are built upon to such an extent that the kids are playing with adding and subtracting squares of numbers and figuring out square roots.  But it's the play that makes up the bulk of the curriculum for 1st-4th. (there is no K work.  It is assumed Kindergarteners will just play)

[8filltheheart]

20 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

Well,  not exactly right here.
Mathematics is a language of patterns.  Children start to pick these up unconsciously and don't need every detail pointed out to them - when they are ready, they get it.  They begin to understand how we count, and how we group, and make groups based on what they can see easily (nothing more than 5).  It is inherent.  A good curriculum will simply help that along.  Every program we've gravitated to works on that principle (Montessori, MUS, Right Start, MEP..)  Right now we're using Gattegno and half the first book is nothing but play.  Playing with colors and sizes and patterns, letting the kids build and describe what they build, playing games..by the second book the subtle lessons in the first are built upon to such an extent that the kids are playing with adding and subtracting squares of numbers and figuring out square roots.  But it's the play that makes up the bulk of the curriculum for 1st-4th. (there is no K work.  It is assumed Kindergarteners will just play)

I have no knowledge of the programs that you are describing, but those processes are what what I am alluding to in my post. Like you, I have witnessed it in my own children. I have seen my children master concepts completely through play.