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Gifted and talented

just knowing maths answers

48 replies

mrswormwood · 03/08/2015 07:03

Does anyone else's child just know maths answers? Ds is reaching the end of reception. His maths is ok, not as strong as his reading (he can read Harry Potter, The Hobbit etc). His report said that he exceeded expectations. He picks up concepts easily but we haven't done much at home and at school they have focused mainly on phonics. He has done doubling and halving at school and can do that confidently (eg. he worked out that 32 was half of 64 so he was half way through a book).

Then there is the wierd stuff. I have NC as this could out me with his teachers! Sitting in the back of the car, randomly announces that if he was a cat he would be 35 (dd1 is cat crazy so he would know that 7 cat years approximates to one human year). Coming down for breakfast he sees on the microwave that it is 7.00 and announces that means that they can each (3 children) watch 30 minutes of TV before we have to leave at 8.30 (I haven't taught him to tell the time). Talking about years says that he will be dead by the year 3000, I say yes, but he might make it to 2100, he says yes I will be 91 (born in 2009) - ok so he will turn 91 in 2100, but we didn't specify the date.

Each time that this happens he denies having worked it out. He just 'knows it'. If I ask him directly what 7x5 is then he can work it out (I can see him doing it from his face), but he doesn't know it. I realise that it could be chance, but when he does this 'thing' it is always out of the blue and he is always right first time and without apparently working it out. I realise that the calculations aren't tricky for a competent 9/10 yr old, but it is the apparent lack of calculating that seems wierd, and that if given them as a straight maths equation he would work them out. He could be planning these events - certainly with the cat age, but the other two seemed completely spontaneous. Other than being ahead of his peers he seems to be developing normally. He doesn't seem to be on the autistic spectrum. Anyone had any experience with this sort of thing?

OP posts:
Mehitabel6 · 03/08/2015 07:11

It is quite common if he has that sort of brain and is interested in numbers- just encourage it.

Bleakhouse1879 · 03/08/2015 07:22

I'd be the proudest father in the land if my child was as, sharp and quick-witted as your young man is.

midnightvelvetPart2 · 03/08/2015 07:32

Just asked my ds who is G&T at maths and he says sometimes he needs to work it out and sometimes he just knows.

If your ds is G&T then the school will pick it up and if they have a G&T club or similar he will be invited to it.

Enjoy your boy and enjoy being amazed at what he comes out with Smile teach him to play chess and maybe an instrument and keep it light and enjoyable at this stage, encourage him but don't push.
My ds was beating me at rummy by 5, perhaps yours would like card games as well Smile

Mehitabel6 · 03/08/2015 07:37

Chess, card games etc are brilliant for encouraging it.
I have the sort of brain that just 'knows things' but only occasionally.
My mother always had it- not a lot of use in helping me with maths homework because she couldn't do the all important method- she just 'knew' - and she was always right!

Superexcited · 03/08/2015 07:38

Yes, I have experience of this. My child knew all of his 12 times tables and could tell the time perfectly at the age of 3-4. He was very advanced in maths and I hadn't taught him any of it. The nursery suspected ASD as they had never seen anything like it but referrals to specialists amounted to us being told that he was just a very clever boy who had an aptitude for maths.
He is older now (senior school)and has a large bursary to a very selective independent school.

The main difficulties we had was that our son could never tell us how he had worked things out and didn't see the need to show any workings out in his work. The answers were always right and so he didn't see any need to explain how he had arrived at the answer. However, knowing why the answer is what it is and being able to show why and work it out is a really important skill for when maths becomes more complicated when they get older (plus you sometimes get marks for showing workings). It was only between the ages of 9 and 10 when my son had a really good maths teacher that he mastered this skill.
I would advise you to work on that skill if you can because it will be important later on.

TheWildRumpyPumpus · 03/08/2015 07:50

My DS1 had just finished yr2. He is similar to your son in that maths just seems to come completely naturally to him - give him any kind of sum and he can just come up with the the answer (sometimes you can see the clogs whirring, sometimes it's instantaneous).

It was written as a negative on his report though - 'DS always gets the answer right, but he often doesn't know WHY he has got the answer right. This is his target going forward.'

Mental maths is great, but you need to have some method to back it up.

switchitoff · 03/08/2015 08:05

Maths is the one subject where some students will just know the answers without appearing to have been taught or needing to work it out. There are obviously just some brains that are wired up that way.

My DS is in top set Maths at a grammar school and is still like this. He just knows the answers. He has no idea what I'm talking about if I try to show him how I would have worked it out and accuses me of making things harder.

The problem is that these days, in GCSEs and A-levels you don't get full marks for getting the right answer - you have to show your workings. So he does this weird thing where he writes down the correct answer and then remembers he's supposed to show workings, so guesses randomly at what the workings might be and writes that below. His teachers are forever writing "Do the workings in the correct order!" in the margin. So I agree with the PP's suggestion that you try to crack this when your DS is a bit older, because it's something that my DS still hasn't got the hang of, and is causing a problem now.

mrswormwood · 03/08/2015 08:05

Good to hear your experiences. He is good at cards and hates to lose, he is a mmean rummy player too. We haven't played much chess with him as his sisters lost all of our pieces when they were younger. Might add a set to his birthday list. He enjoys games like articulate, labyrinth, top trumps etc. He also loves dragon box.

It is a good point about learning to show the workings. I am always reminding my students to show the method. I think that in the future I will write down the maths that he has used too to help him understand how he did it.

OP posts:
mrswormwood · 03/08/2015 08:08

Or maybe not how he did it but how us meer mortals might have done it!

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mrswormwood · 03/08/2015 08:10

meer mere

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Emochild · 03/08/2015 08:13

My dd also just knew the answers in primary school and it was a battle to get her to show workings out

Now she's going into yr9 and its a problem when it comes to things like quadratic equations and she has now decided she's rubbish at maths -the problem is more that she doesn't know how to try!

Mehitabel6 · 03/08/2015 08:14

It was the same in the 'old days' of exams-you needed the working out.

Chess is excellent and generally that sort of brain is good at it.

mrswormwood · 03/08/2015 08:22

Yes the issue of perseverance is an important one. His sisters have learnt that hard work brings rewards. Academically he hasn't really found a challenge. He is also learning Spanish with ease. He is finding swimming harder so hopefully that will teach him the benefits of keeping going.

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midnightvelvetPart2 · 03/08/2015 08:23

I have similar emo so many things come naturally to ds that if something doesn't, he doesn't know how to try or strive for it. He would rather not do something new than try it and fail.

JiltedJohnsJulie · 03/08/2015 08:29

Another with experience. Can remember his teacher in Y1 trying to make him show his workings out and DS being baffled by this, then me saying that if you have known how to do it for half of your life, workings out will be pretty meaningless.

Agree with getting him to play chess and a musical interest but don't forget the sport too Smile

Superexcited · 03/08/2015 08:31

the problem is more that she doesn't know how to try!

Yes, that was always our concern and what the maths teacher who eventually got our son showing workings was concerned about. By being able to explain how they have arrived at the answer they can use that logic for more complex maths problems. Our son actually spent at least 50% of his maths lessons in year 5 'helping others' by explaining to them how to work things out and what methods they should use. It first seemed like the teacher was just occupying my sons time and not differentiating his work but actually she was helping him to learn really useful skills for tackling more complex maths and it helped him enormously in his preparation for senior school.

mrswormwood · 03/08/2015 08:32

Have signed him up for football in Sept jilted , he has finally admitted that he can't learn about football by reading books!

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var123 · 03/08/2015 08:33

DS2 is the same. He is just about to start secondary school but he's been able to just know the answer from the beginning, even when it makes no sense that he could do it because you'd think he would need some explanation first.

He has been taught some stuff, but as an example, he was looking at some GCSE level questions recently, and he didn't understand a couple of them and asked me for help. I'm good at maths but I'd have had weeks of practice at school when I was 14/15 to master some of these topics. I will start to explain it to DS2 and halfway through my explanation he'll stop me. Then, irritated, I'll suggest that he tries the question if he thinks he doesn't need the whole explanation, and then he proves me wrong by doing it and getting the right answer. I really do not understand how he does it.

The whole "show your workings" has been a long running problem. If he slows down to do it, he forgets the answer, and oddly, he doesn't always get to it again by writing down the workings. So, now he writes down all the answers and then goes back afterwards to spend the time writing in the workings.

JiltedJohnsJulie · 03/08/2015 08:34

Once DS was doing more complex maths he could show the workings out. It was the simple stuff they were giving him that he struggled with.

mrswormwood · 03/08/2015 08:35

Although he has tried! He knows all the theory of football. Going to try (again) to teach him to ride his bike.

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user789653241 · 03/08/2015 09:03

It' so weird, my ds is the same, Var.
Looking at the question, he tells me he know the answer(and it' correct), then writing down the working out, he gets confused and makes silly mistakes etc.
I should tell him to write down the answer first!
It is on going problem for him since reception, to try to make show his working out.

user789653241 · 03/08/2015 09:05

make him show!

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marmaladegranny · 03/08/2015 09:23

Interesting that this thread is all about boys! My DD is extremely good at maths but not quite as uncanny as these boys. Like a pp explaining how to do the problems to other pupils (right up to undergraduate level) really helped her. She had a very perceptive teacher in years 5 & 6 - one of his strategies with her was to encourage her to work from 2 maths schemes; so she would do the initial work with the rest of her group from scheme A and then work on the same topic from a different scheme where the ideas were expressed differently. This was back in 1980s so things may have changed since then

mrswormwood · 03/08/2015 11:22

He doesn't seem to realise that he is doing anything. He is as surprised as we are that the answers are correct. He maintains that they are just guesses. He gets the theory behind addition, multiplication etc but doesn't seem to use it.

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swisscheesetony · 03/08/2015 11:30

I did it. Just "got" numbers, actually told my gcse teacher a new way/formula in geometry. Could do that "Rainman" trick of someone opening their palm with a number of objects (usually coins) and give numbers/values. Did maths for four years at uni and went to only a couple of lectures - once corrected a robotics lecturer.

It's got me fuck all in life and now at 41 my brain is dead and I couldn't tell you how many coffees I've had today.

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