{"id":30885,"date":"2017-04-18T10:08:58","date_gmt":"2017-04-18T17:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/?p=30885"},"modified":"2017-04-18T10:08:58","modified_gmt":"2017-04-18T17:08:58","slug":"why-is-a-gifted-student-having-trouble-with-rocket-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/why-is-a-gifted-student-having-trouble-with-rocket-math\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is a gifted student having trouble with Rocket Math?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Question:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>Hi, Dr. Don! Just had a question recently from a parent of a gifted child whose son is having a lot of difficulty doing Rocket Math! He understands almost everything conceptually in math (in the 99% on national testing) but he is not being successful working with a partner on his math facts. Have you had this problem in other places? I\u2019m not sure if the problem is he really can\u2019t focus on the facts, he\u2019s stubborn and doesn\u2019t like details (big picture thinker), etc. He\u2019s a very social kid so the partnering doesn\u2019t seem to be the problem. I would greatly appreciate any suggestions you might have that I could give this mother. She says that he is fine at home doing his facts with her without a timer. But I don\u2019t like the idea of excusing any student from doing this valuable practice. Thanks for your thoughts. Linda<\/p>\n

Answer:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>I\u2019ve blogged a bit on some of these issues elsewhere on the Rocket Math website, but let me try to be more specific here. First, gifted kids are stunned to find out that they have to work hard to memorize math facts. They probably need three or four days of practice\u2014which to them seems like failure. \u00a0They are like an athletic kid who excels easily at every sport but finds he needs to work out with weights as much as a klutz to get to be able to lift heavy weights\u2014his natural talent doesn\u2019t help in this instance. So kids who\u2019ve never had to work to learn things before, really are annoyed by having to practice several days in a row. \u00a0But it is really good for them!<\/p>\n

How is mom practicing with him at home? Can she video him doing the test “untimed?” \u00a0If the child is \u201cwriting facts\u201d and \u201cwithout a timer\u201d then he may be figuring out facts over and over\u2014but is not getting to instant recall. That\u2019s why the oral peer practice is so critical\u2014if there is even a slight hesitation the child is to repeat the fact three times, back up three problems and come at it again\u2014until the answer comes with no hesitation. There is a fundamental difference between instant recall of facts from memory and strategies to come to the answer by thinking it through. My\u00a0parent letter<\/a>\u00a0addresses how to practice. \u00a0On the other hand, if the student is able to write the answers to math facts at a fast enough rate to complete 40 problems in a minute, but only when he thinks he is not being “timed” then he needs to learn how to do the same thing when he is being timed.<\/p>\n

If he is not learning with the daily practice, we have to ask, “Why not?” \u00a0Social kids sometimes socialize instead of practicing. Social kids also can convince their partner not to do the correction procedure. Or they just say the answers instead of the whole problem and the answer. Any of those things would result in not successfully learning the facts. The teacher would need to monitor the quality of the practice. My experience has been that when students are \u201cstuck\u201d or \u201chaving difficulty\u201d even just one session of practice done the right way rigorously (with me) and they suddenly improve enough to pass or to recognize they can pass the next day with another session of rigorous practice.<\/p>\n

Last of all, sometimes the writing goals are off because of some glitch in how you gave the writing speed test. \u00a0So the student might know the facts well enough but not be able to write them fast enough to pass the tests. \u00a0If the student can answer 40 facts in a minute in the current set (just saying the answers without having to say the problems) then the facts are learned to automaticity\u2014and the goal in writing should be lowered to whatever the student has done to this point.<\/p>\n

Hope this helps. You are right not to excuse this student from learning math facts to automaticity. He might be a stellar mathematician someday if he learns his facts well enough that math computation is always easy for him. If math computation remains slow or laborious he won\u2019t like it enough to pursue it as a career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question:\u00a0Hi, Dr. Don! Just had a question recently from a parent of a gifted child whose son is having a lot of difficulty doing Rocket Math! He understands almost everything conceptually in math (in the 99% on national testing) but he is not being successful working with a partner on his math facts. Have you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":837,"featured_media":11262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0},"categories":[46],"tags":[35,47,61,38],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30885"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/837"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30886,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30885\/revisions\/30886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocketmath.com\/stagingserver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}