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Talk to other parents about parenting a gifted child on this forum.

Gifted and talented

5 year old bright at Maths

15 replies

Greenpoppins · 08/06/2020 07:53

My just turned 5 year old can mentally do addition and subtraction of 2 and 3 digit numbers along with multiplication, division and fractions. He's also quite creative with Maths - he will say things like when we pass number 70 house 'if I add all our ages together and times them by 3 then minus x's age, it's 70'.

I mentioned this to his teacher and she didn't really respond. Am I being a bit delusional that he is bright at Maths? At what point should i see an educational psychologist? Do you set extra work at home if your child is working ahead of the class at school?

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Greenpoppins · 08/06/2020 08:00

Also worth mentioning he has exceptional concentration when it comes to Maths - he can sit down for several hours and do number sentences.

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EasynowPatrick · 08/06/2020 08:04

This is a really personal thing. I would give extra at home and wouldn’t see an Ed psych. Make it fun, do maths games and provide some challenge at 5 making sure they fully grasp all the basic stuff they are doing at school. Some will say leave it to school, they know what they are doing. I don’t expect any teacher to care as much about my individual dc education as I do! I wouldn’t expect them to jump to provide vastly differentiated work for 1 child at this age. Others will probably come on to say, my 3year old could do that when they slept! Doesn’t take anything away from your dc working at an advanced level.

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MaidenMotherCrone · 08/06/2020 08:10

Educational Psychologist?

Slow down.

He's five just let him enjoy numbers.

He's bright mathematically.How is he in other subjects, emotionally etc?

My youngest DS taught himself his times tables up to 13 when he was 4. Just out of the blue one day. He was bright all round, confident, happy. I didn't do anything.
He's in the last year of his Physics combined Masters degree.

You don't need to do anything except encourage him especially in any weaker areas.

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LidlDonkey · 08/06/2020 08:12

My DS has always had a thing for numbers, ever since he was tiny.

He is in the gifted group at 6th form for maths now (he's 17).

I think mathematical ability is something that does seem to stay with you. So nurture it and encourage him, but try not to push him too much.

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Greenpoppins · 08/06/2020 08:21

@EasynowPatrick Thank you! We do let him have fun and play as he pleases. I think being at home and seeing how much Maths he likes to do has left both myself and my husband taken aback.

@MaidenMotherCrone - haha, will give the EP a pass. I've only just come to this part of Mumsnet and have seen it mentioned multiple times so wasn't sure if it was the first point of call. Emotionally he is quite mature, I would say his reading is above average (although not exceptional) but he finds writing a story quite difficult.

@LidlDonkey - thanks for the reply. Despite perhaps sounding overly invested in my first post I swear we are very normal parents! I've been so taken aback my his application in maths we haven't been sure what to do.

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MaidenMotherCrone · 08/06/2020 08:43

Perfectly normal to find writing a story tricky at age 5. I wouldn't worry about that at all.

With my DS I had to work on him rushing.
He could just 'do' everything so found everything easy and just rushed through the work. Not good! To be honest it took years and even now at 21 he does work at breakneck speed.

Have you thought of introducing him to coding? It wasn't available for my son but would've suited him at that age.

Encourage a love of reading which helps in so many ways and Computers in general. My DS had a typing speed of over 100wpm by the time he was 10. Purely from gaming.
He had lots of other interests too, he's turned out a very well rounded man .

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RuthW · 08/06/2020 09:18

Sound like he is gifted. My dd was gifted at maths but we didn't realise until she was about 7 or 8. Set work if he enjoys it.

My dd ended up with a first class masters degree and now teaches maths to secondary school children. She loves to inspire those from less privileged backgrounds so is working at a challenging school.

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JustRichmal · 09/06/2020 08:32

I very much agree with EasynowPatrick's post. I taught dd maths from a very young age. I found maths fun to teach and she enjoyed learning.

I always think maths is more about pattern spotting and visualising new ideas than arithmetic. So I used to do lots of colourful drawings and diagrams, which made it more fun.

There are lots of books to help with what to learn to follow the curriculum. eg Letts or CGP revision guides.

I too would not bother with the educational psychologist.

But every child is different and what may suit one, may not suit another. As long as, as others have said, you get a good balance with other subjects and activities, go with your instincts.

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HuaShan · 13/06/2020 16:33

The great thing about Maths is that there is plenty outside the curriculum to stretch an able child - the problem might be finding someone that can support this.
Start looking at nrich, when he can read fluently get him some Murderous Maths books. When he's secondary age look at the UKMT challenges. My ds had a 6th former work 1:1 with him to look at problem solving which he loved. There is not much point rushing ahead with the curriculum because at some point he'll run out and if he eventually wants to study Maths university does not like them to have 'stopped' at any point (e.g by sitting A level age 14 and then not continuing with Maths)
My ds was very like your age 5 and now has an Oxford offer and was one of the top 100 scorers in the UK in the 2nd round of the Maths Olympiad. I never needed to do anything other than encourage and buy lots of books - the rest he did himself. That said, the talk in Oxford when he went for his interview was all about an 11 year old who was being interviewed by one of the colleges!

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Greenpoppins · 13/06/2020 19:08

Thanks so much for the pointers @HuaShan. I'll start looking at those resources - Murderous Maths looks superb!

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weegiemum · 13/06/2020 19:16

I know a boy who has been ahead in maths since before school. He's 12 and working towards A level. His dad taught him to play chess as he's now one of the top players in his age range.

Might be an idea to explain the rules and see what he does with that? I'm sure there must be a "Chess for Beginners" book or something on YouTube?

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JustMarriedBecca · 13/06/2020 21:27

DD is similar. Age 5 and can multiply to 14 times table, understands fractions and all the wider maths stuff like money and telling the time. School give her Year 3 maths as standard and Nrich problems within her EYFS setting. She will sometimes go to other classes - she did nets with Year 6 after she just drew and made some quite randomly in craft. School talk a lot about mastery and use of language to explain - apparently it can be a problem in bright children with maths ability. They need to understand from an early age why and apply that in their answers rather than respond 'because it just is' even though the answer to them maybe as easy as 'because it just is'. Because at some point the answer won't just 'be' and they need the skills and resilience to work it out. They mainly work on this with her.

My husband came top of that Maths Olympiad thing or whatever it was back in the day so I think it's genetic 😂

Most important thing is to get a decent teacher in a decent school. Ours is state by the way and they have addressed her curiosity in all subjects. God knows how they do it because I struggle.

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DamnYouAutocucumber · 13/06/2020 22:02

DS is like this, from a very early age he just understood numbers and loved finding patterns, maths is fun to him.
He struggled a bit in primary school, as there weren't many people on his wavelength and his teachers didn't really seem to know what to do with him. In foundation they were doubling numbers, some of the others managed 2,4,8 and then he started and eventually the teacher had to stop him somewhere in the thousands! I think he's spent a lot of time at school being bored, but has loved a couple of teachers who gave their classes creative problems to solve. Generally things have got better as he's got older (currently y7) so I've found it a bit hit and miss whether a love of maths is supported by primary schools.
I think we got it when he was a bit older than 5, but DS loved www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1472111044/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_CMt5EbEF3PRQV?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21 Numbers Are Forever and has followed up with lots of other books by people with that same love of numbers. He finds probability interesting and had a book about mathematical mistakes which he found incredibly funny. We also googled interesting number facts and lists of big numbers, we enjoyed learning about all the names of everything beyond billions.
The main thing I would try to do is encourage the fun and interest.

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Daftasabroom · 15/06/2020 17:27

Another parent with an Olympiad and Oxford son. Don't sweat it, it's one less thing to worry about. I was so much more chuffed about the pass in English than all the other accolades DS achieved. If he's good and enjoys it it will all work out fine, you really won't have to do much, it's the things they with that are perhaps more important to focus on.