Anna1111 wrote:
Well, I'm not much of a conformist on this stuff. I don't believe in the "not too much at this age" theory.
I think it's a huge blessing for a child to be good at reading and math early - and practice is usually what makes that happen.
If they're old enough to look around at their peers and think "I'm the only one who cannot read/multiply/whatever" then it is very hard for them to gain confidence in those areas later. I'm just now (as I successfully teach dd math) catching on that I COULD have been good at math if I had had good early math instruction. Instead, I lived all my life thinking I didn't have a gene for it or whatever.
Yes, and especially dealing with Christian's reading troubles, Saphira's spelling troubles, and both of them having poor working memory which makes memorizing math facts nearly impossible, I definitely feel like it can only help him to start these things early.
I also struggled with math. Not the concepts, I did real well with that part in higher math, like Algebra. But I was never able to completely memorize and retain all my math facts. I've seen the same thing in my kids. Christian is doing pretty well, but I see the same problems with memorization that I had. I just keep having him practice those facts, as we move forward with new concepts. We got behind because of me waiting for him to memorize everything and then I realized we would never move forward if I waited for mastery.
Well, turns out that poor working memory is common with not only ADD, but with Dyslexia, so my kids have a double disadvantage that they have to work through. But it's funny that where they are weak in one area, they are stronger in another. For example, Christian struggles with memorizing his facts, yet he can sit there and solve multi-step problems in his head, while I have to sit and write it out to see if it's correct. Anyways, I blamed school for me not mastering my math facts, when I really had ample exposure and time to memorize them, it was my poor working memory keeping me from mastery. In addition to regular practice of math facts, I've also found some games/exercises I can do with them to improve their working memory, so I'm hopeful that will help.