Hi there. In this education post I talk about talented youngsters in the education setting. The motivation behind this post was from my work. There was a free trial assessment occurring. I was told by my boss there that the youngster in Senior Kindergarten is not able to read but he can add doubles such as 16 + 16, 32 + 32, 64 + 64, 128 + 128. Adding doubles is not typically in Senior Kindergarten or even in grade 1 or 2 in the Toronto area as far as I know. This young child's adding ability seems to be good. I have heard he learned this doubling skill from the children's section of Youtube.
High Skill Level In Some Youngsters
Over the years in the private education space in which I am in is that you learn quite a bit of things from other people and student clients. One of the things that do surprise me from time to time is the high skill level and ability of some youngsters. Some kids are able to learn topics and/or do certain hobbies as a very high level at such a young age. One big example of a young mega talent in my opinion is this girl playing and singing the song Hotel California. She does drums, guitar and sings. (Video editing is done by someone else I am sure)
There are some kids out there who are very good with number sense, arithmetic (adding, subtracting, multiplying and division) and algebra. Some can argue that these type of kids are born with it. Possibly. I think that some are trained at an early age by proactive and early parenting.
Parenting Plays A Role
My theory is that a lot of highly skilled students are levels above the local school level have had some sort of parenting influence. Think about it. How can a grade 1 youngster for example be able to do multiplication which is usually taught in grade 3 (Toronto area)? If this grade 1 was able to learn it on his own that is truly impressive. When it comes to learning we almost always learn from each other and not alone. I think a youngster in grade 1 would learn multiplication early from parent(s), educational books and/or online educational videos.
Parents who are proactive in their child's development use the early years for a child to really build strong foundations for them. Foundational topics include the basics of reading, writing, mathematics, manners and basic fitness. I would think that for these parents it is better to learn things early and be ahead versus playing catch up.
One more thing to note is that the Toronto area has had recent curriculum changes in its education content and order of topics. It is somewhat more rigorous and the order of topics seems weird to me. I had a post a while back about this. In addition I made a critical point that it is unrealistic for a grade 1 to 3 student to learn how to code when they should first learn how to read, write and learn how to type on a keyboard. I think some parents could be aware of educational changes that can happen at any time and want their kids to be more prepared in case the topics get tougher.
