7 ms·

I imagine that a good portion of HN's readership (and probably MathOverflow.com's) were intellectually gifted as children. Or at the very least, remember thems

I imagine that a good portion of HN's readership (and probably MathOverflow.com's) were intellectually gifted as children. Or at the very least, remember themselves that way. I would therefore caution people on two things: (1) your personal memories of early childhood are often quite distorted, and (2) it's not fair to impose upon a child today the expectations that come from your own ego-distorted memory. This post caught my attention because I happen to be the father of a 5-year old son, and I myself have been searching for interesting mental exercises to share with him. It's been an exercise for me as much as for him, teaching me about patience and tempered expectations. Five years is YOUNG. A generation ago, early childhood educators in the U.S. didn't even typically introduce reading until age six. We start reading in kindergarten now, but typical 5-year olds can generally be expected to recognize repetitive words and basic arithmetic concepts (e.g. 1 + 2 = 3). Even that is limited to short periods of study in each sitting. Children may vary, but I believe that many of the suggestions on that MathOverflow.com page (as well as comments here about chess, etc) would be better suited for around 7-8 and up. I think it would be unrealistic to expect the majority of 5-year olds to handle much of this, and it would be a mistake to push too hard at that age.

Swizec 9y ago
> Five years is YOUNG. A generation ago, early childhood educators in the U.S. didn't even typically introduce reading until age six. We used to start reading in 1st grade when I was a kid. That was 7 years old back then in my country. We learned letters and stuff in kindergarten, but reading was the main task of 1st grade. My parents decided I was pretty smart so they tried to encourage me to learn how to read sooner than 7. I vehemently opposed this idea and said that I'm not old enough yet to read and that they should leave me alone and that I will read when it's time to read. I was upset, I think, that people were pushing me to do things beyond my age and it seemed somehow like that was not what I want. Somehow I was a fluent reader on the first day of 1st grade. I suspect I actually knew how to read before but refused to do it until I was the right age. I'm not sure what my point was in sharing this story, but here we are.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  I started learning to read around 4 and was reading pretty well before the end of kindergarten, basically because I had the expectation that I could. First grade had a few tracks, based on reading ability. Some wires got crossed, and I ended up in the remedial class. The teacher wouldn't let me go, and the principal supported the teacher. That year was hell.
  - philipov 9y ago
    I had a similar experience with remedial reading in 6th grade. When we were asked to bring in self-chosen reading material, I brought in "Complete Works of Shakespeare," as a protest. Turned out my reading level was measured at grade 12+, but despite being off their scale, rules gotta be rules!
- openfuture 9y ago
  I have the _exact_ same story. Parents thought I was reasonably smart so while the school starts teaching reading at 6 or 7 years old they tried to have me learn it earlier but I was extremely opposed to it since I didn't want to have nothing to do in school (and I thought that was all you'd learn there - which I guess is sort of true :^)
  - bdamm 9y ago
    That and what it means to have "protection".
fny 9y ago
I think the bigger issue here is interest. I sure as hell would never have enjoyed these games, except maybe Set, as a 5 year-old. My attention span was fit for assembling legos and catching lizards, and a few years later, I became interested in math and programming. Not because my parents foisted them upon me: math because math showed up in school, and I had questions that needed answering; programming because my dad was building a website, and I wanted one too. My siblings took very different paths as well that were similarly organic.
- wslh 9y ago
  I agree, a lot of interest in math/programming starts up without a plan and without external pressure. Less when you are a child.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    Interest/enjoyment is a factor, but I don't think it's the only factor that matters. Long term success also matters. Pardon my racist stereotype but Asian families are supposedly very strict on and focused towards education for their children, seemingly in spite of the enjoyment of the child. The results here are obvious, Asian adults are kicking every other race's ass in basically every metric of success you can name: lower criminality rates, higher education, higher incomes, lower divorce rate, lower single motherhood rate, etc. Now, I'm not suggesting that everyone must adopt the stereotyped child rearing practices of Asian families, but it's worth considering that enjoyment for the child need not be the only priority.
    - wslh 9y ago
      If you look at Nobel prizes, Turing awards, and Fields medals are not represented by Asians.
      - richardw 9y ago
        I think it's better to have fewer medals but have the majority of the population receive the above-mentioned benefits.
wvenable 9y ago
My mother-in-law was a kindergarten teacher many many years ago and she said it was typical to have to teach 5-6 year-olds the names of colors, shapes, and to identify letters. Then Sesame Street became widely available and the next generation of kids already knew everything they would normally teach.
- evincarofautumn 9y ago
  Fascinating, I wouldn’t have expected that. I’m sure it depends on the family, too—my parents read with me from a young age, and I liked it, so I learned quickly. In retrospect, 3 was a big year for me, haha. I remember going from not being able to read, to my parents finding out that I could read on my own (when they discovered me reading aloud the opening of Legend of Zelda for the NES) to reading proficiently by myself (thanks, Dr. Seuss!) And at 4, I remember being very surprised when I went to kindergarten, and some of the kids made me read things for them because they couldn’t yet. I thought they must have been joking or making fun of me at first, but it turns out my parents are just great.
  - secabeen 9y ago
    It's not just the parents. Some kids just don't take to it. My wife and I are both voracious readers, we read to our kids every day, and our 7-year-old is just not that into reading yet. On the other hand, her 4-year-old sister is picking it up great, and is only a few steps behind her sister. Each kid is different, and engaged parents are helpful, but necessarily everything.
    - aidenn0 9y ago
      Indeed, our 10 year old didn't start reading independently until she was almost 9, but now goes through a book a week. Our 4 year old and 6 year old are both at the point where they can read common words, and sound out simple phonetically spelled words (and we neglected reading enough to our 4 year old because we had 3 older kids we were dealing with), so the difference innate ability and interest have is huge.
    - 9y ago
failrate 9y ago
I don't have much respect for the school system's standards for what age is appropriate to start teaching different subjects. Children in my family start reading around 3. I consider reading a power tool that bootstraps further learning. If I had waited until school to start learning, I would have been held back in my development for years.
- akie 9y ago
  Children have wildly different capabilities. I've seen quite a few who probably wouldn't be able to read at age three. As the father of two highly intelligent kids myself (according to a few unprompted remarks by a number of people), I don't see what the rush is either. Kids are kids, let them play! They can be serious the rest of their lives. If they are intelligent enough to read at three they'll be fine anyway....
  - failrate 9y ago
    It is because they have different capabilities that I don't respect the standard put forth by the school system.
- adrianratnapala 9y ago
  If your kids can read at 3, then good. But the power-tool argument allows for flexibility. I think I was a little slow, or at best normal in picking up reading as a kid. But for whatever reason, by about the age of 8 I was reading well ahead of the rest. So I never read The Cat in the Hat, but I read the The Hobbit long before most kids. And I'm glad, because that second level is where the real power-tool lies. There's little point reading non-fiction at Cat in the Hat level. But there's plenty of facts available that are simpler to read than The Hobbit. That isn't to say I didn't learn other stuff: my favorite childhood book was about science. But it had lots of pictures, and when fist got it, my parents read an explained it to me.
- marchenko 9y ago
  I was a precocious reader (<3yo), and I have a strong suspicion that kids who learn to read early read differently than those who learn "on schedule". I think early readers do something much more like code breaking, and I wonder if this affects second language acquisition or other skills. I don't necessarily think one style is preferable to the other, but I do think there is a potentially interesting difference. I was very happy to read early, and I think it was advantageous for me, but I have not seen evidence that early reading in itself provides any lasting advantages on average. There may be a good deal of heterogeneity in the early-reading population.
jowalski 9y ago
Great observation. There is more pressure on kids than in the past. My daughter (1st grade now) was assigned homework every day in kindergarten (age 5), at a regular public school in the US, albeit a small amount and she didn't seem to be too bothered by it. These do seem possibly above a 5-year-old's level, and potentially a turn-off if they don't latch on quickly. However, I'm actually impressed that the Math curriculum at schools today is much less narrowly arithmetical, and much in the vein of some of the puzzles mentioned here, in particular the "sets" game. These games are good ideas, I will definitely try them, at the same time if the kid just isn't into it, no need to give up on them going to college. Let them try something else, or just go outside and play.
- ineptech 9y ago
  If anyone wants to try Set out with their kids, I made a free[0] Android version a while back. It's called Pipster[1] and it uses dog/cat/rabbit pictures instead of abstract shapes. "Beginner" difficulty is 3 dimensions (shape/color/number of stripes) which is much more appropriate for young children; "normal" and higher difficulties add color-of-stripes as the fourth dimension, which is equivalent to the normal Set game. 0: no ads or anything, this was a "teach myself android" project 1: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bogus.trio https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bogus.trio
  - sebg 9y ago
    Great job! Have been playing it all morning. Only request would be ability to change difficulty level. :)
    - ineptech 9y ago
      Eh, I think it should unlock when you play enough but I have no idea how long that takes or if it even works anymore! Thanks tho!
- torshi 9y ago
  Another variation of set that recently came out. Pretty challenging and my 7 year old always wins. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zort-4/id1288184054?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zort-4/id1288184054?mt=8&ign...
pervycreeper 9y ago
The worst potential harm in exposing a child to stimulating problems too early is that he could fail to become immediately interested in them; the potential harm in failing to do so is that he will never fulfill his maximum potential.
- avip 9y ago
  No. The potential harm is experiencing failure, in the very field she feels strongly is precious and important to her beloved parents. The potential harm is having a kid less eager to try new things because he's afraid of something.
  - adrianratnapala 9y ago
    I'd think "experiencing failure" is only a problem if a parent persistently tries to push something inappropriate. Otherwise it is just part of life and of growing up. The (minor) failure is still a learning experience, just a moral rather than mathematical one.
- StevePerkins 9y ago
  "avip" nailed it already, better than I could. I'm just replying to say that if your username is "pervycreeper", you might reconsider whether to weigh in on exposing a child to anything...
mudita 9y ago
An interesting case is famous educator László Polgár, who believed that "geniuses are made, not born" and raised his three daughters to become very, very successful in chess with "two of them becoming the best and second best women chess players in the world" (Wikipedia). He did this especially by beginning to teach them, when they were very young - four years old. "Judit was able to defeat her father at chess when she was just five" Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Polgár https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Polgár Another discussion: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/30/hungarian-education-iii-mastering-the-core-teachings-of-the-budapestians/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/30/hungarian-education-iii...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
corpMaverick 9y ago
> I imagine that a good portion of HN's readership (and probably MathOverflow.com's) were intellectually gifted as children. Or at the very least, remember themselves that way. Not gifted. But definitely curious.

Swizec 9y ago

> Five years is YOUNG. A generation ago, early childhood educators in the U.S. didn't even typically introduce reading until age six. We used to start reading in 1st grade when I was a kid. That was 7 years old back then in my country. We learned letters and stuff in kindergarten, but reading was the main task of 1st grade. My parents decided I was pretty smart so they tried to encourage me to learn how to read sooner than 7. I vehemently opposed this idea and said that I'm not old enough yet to read and that they should leave me alone and that I will read when it's time to read. I was upset, I think, that people were pushing me to do things beyond my age and it seemed somehow like that was not what I want. Somehow I was a fluent reader on the first day of 1st grade. I suspect I actually knew how to read before but refused to do it until I was the right age. I'm not sure what my point was in sharing this story, but here we are.

khedoros1 9y ago
I started learning to read around 4 and was reading pretty well before the end of kindergarten, basically because I had the expectation that I could. First grade had a few tracks, based on reading ability. Some wires got crossed, and I ended up in the remedial class. The teacher wouldn't let me go, and the principal supported the teacher. That year was hell.
- philipov 9y ago
  I had a similar experience with remedial reading in 6th grade. When we were asked to bring in self-chosen reading material, I brought in "Complete Works of Shakespeare," as a protest. Turned out my reading level was measured at grade 12+, but despite being off their scale, rules gotta be rules!
openfuture 9y ago
I have the _exact_ same story. Parents thought I was reasonably smart so while the school starts teaching reading at 6 or 7 years old they tried to have me learn it earlier but I was extremely opposed to it since I didn't want to have nothing to do in school (and I thought that was all you'd learn there - which I guess is sort of true :^)
- bdamm 9y ago
  That and what it means to have "protection".

fny 9y ago

I think the bigger issue here is interest. I sure as hell would never have enjoyed these games, except maybe Set, as a 5 year-old. My attention span was fit for assembling legos and catching lizards, and a few years later, I became interested in math and programming. Not because my parents foisted them upon me: math because math showed up in school, and I had questions that needed answering; programming because my dad was building a website, and I wanted one too. My siblings took very different paths as well that were similarly organic.

wslh 9y ago
I agree, a lot of interest in math/programming starts up without a plan and without external pressure. Less when you are a child.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  Interest/enjoyment is a factor, but I don't think it's the only factor that matters. Long term success also matters. Pardon my racist stereotype but Asian families are supposedly very strict on and focused towards education for their children, seemingly in spite of the enjoyment of the child. The results here are obvious, Asian adults are kicking every other race's ass in basically every metric of success you can name: lower criminality rates, higher education, higher incomes, lower divorce rate, lower single motherhood rate, etc. Now, I'm not suggesting that everyone must adopt the stereotyped child rearing practices of Asian families, but it's worth considering that enjoyment for the child need not be the only priority.
  - wslh 9y ago
    If you look at Nobel prizes, Turing awards, and Fields medals are not represented by Asians.
    - richardw 9y ago
      I think it's better to have fewer medals but have the majority of the population receive the above-mentioned benefits.

wvenable 9y ago

My mother-in-law was a kindergarten teacher many many years ago and she said it was typical to have to teach 5-6 year-olds the names of colors, shapes, and to identify letters. Then Sesame Street became widely available and the next generation of kids already knew everything they would normally teach.

evincarofautumn 9y ago
Fascinating, I wouldn’t have expected that. I’m sure it depends on the family, too—my parents read with me from a young age, and I liked it, so I learned quickly. In retrospect, 3 was a big year for me, haha. I remember going from not being able to read, to my parents finding out that I could read on my own (when they discovered me reading aloud the opening of Legend of Zelda for the NES) to reading proficiently by myself (thanks, Dr. Seuss!) And at 4, I remember being very surprised when I went to kindergarten, and some of the kids made me read things for them because they couldn’t yet. I thought they must have been joking or making fun of me at first, but it turns out my parents are just great.
- secabeen 9y ago
  It's not just the parents. Some kids just don't take to it. My wife and I are both voracious readers, we read to our kids every day, and our 7-year-old is just not that into reading yet. On the other hand, her 4-year-old sister is picking it up great, and is only a few steps behind her sister. Each kid is different, and engaged parents are helpful, but necessarily everything.
  - aidenn0 9y ago
    Indeed, our 10 year old didn't start reading independently until she was almost 9, but now goes through a book a week. Our 4 year old and 6 year old are both at the point where they can read common words, and sound out simple phonetically spelled words (and we neglected reading enough to our 4 year old because we had 3 older kids we were dealing with), so the difference innate ability and interest have is huge.
  - 9y ago

failrate 9y ago

I don't have much respect for the school system's standards for what age is appropriate to start teaching different subjects. Children in my family start reading around 3. I consider reading a power tool that bootstraps further learning. If I had waited until school to start learning, I would have been held back in my development for years.

akie 9y ago
Children have wildly different capabilities. I've seen quite a few who probably wouldn't be able to read at age three. As the father of two highly intelligent kids myself (according to a few unprompted remarks by a number of people), I don't see what the rush is either. Kids are kids, let them play! They can be serious the rest of their lives. If they are intelligent enough to read at three they'll be fine anyway....
- failrate 9y ago
  It is because they have different capabilities that I don't respect the standard put forth by the school system.
adrianratnapala 9y ago
If your kids can read at 3, then good. But the power-tool argument allows for flexibility. I think I was a little slow, or at best normal in picking up reading as a kid. But for whatever reason, by about the age of 8 I was reading well ahead of the rest. So I never read The Cat in the Hat, but I read the The Hobbit long before most kids. And I'm glad, because that second level is where the real power-tool lies. There's little point reading non-fiction at Cat in the Hat level. But there's plenty of facts available that are simpler to read than The Hobbit. That isn't to say I didn't learn other stuff: my favorite childhood book was about science. But it had lots of pictures, and when fist got it, my parents read an explained it to me.
marchenko 9y ago
I was a precocious reader (<3yo), and I have a strong suspicion that kids who learn to read early read differently than those who learn "on schedule". I think early readers do something much more like code breaking, and I wonder if this affects second language acquisition or other skills. I don't necessarily think one style is preferable to the other, but I do think there is a potentially interesting difference. I was very happy to read early, and I think it was advantageous for me, but I have not seen evidence that early reading in itself provides any lasting advantages on average. There may be a good deal of heterogeneity in the early-reading population.

jowalski 9y ago

Great observation. There is more pressure on kids than in the past. My daughter (1st grade now) was assigned homework every day in kindergarten (age 5), at a regular public school in the US, albeit a small amount and she didn't seem to be too bothered by it. These do seem possibly above a 5-year-old's level, and potentially a turn-off if they don't latch on quickly. However, I'm actually impressed that the Math curriculum at schools today is much less narrowly arithmetical, and much in the vein of some of the puzzles mentioned here, in particular the "sets" game. These games are good ideas, I will definitely try them, at the same time if the kid just isn't into it, no need to give up on them going to college. Let them try something else, or just go outside and play.

ineptech 9y ago
If anyone wants to try Set out with their kids, I made a free[0] Android version a while back. It's called Pipster[1] and it uses dog/cat/rabbit pictures instead of abstract shapes. "Beginner" difficulty is 3 dimensions (shape/color/number of stripes) which is much more appropriate for young children; "normal" and higher difficulties add color-of-stripes as the fourth dimension, which is equivalent to the normal Set game. 0: no ads or anything, this was a "teach myself android" project 1: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bogus.trio https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bogus.trio
- sebg 9y ago
  Great job! Have been playing it all morning. Only request would be ability to change difficulty level. :)
  - ineptech 9y ago
    Eh, I think it should unlock when you play enough but I have no idea how long that takes or if it even works anymore! Thanks tho!
torshi 9y ago
Another variation of set that recently came out. Pretty challenging and my 7 year old always wins. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zort-4/id1288184054?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zort-4/id1288184054?mt=8&ign...

pervycreeper 9y ago

The worst potential harm in exposing a child to stimulating problems too early is that he could fail to become immediately interested in them; the potential harm in failing to do so is that he will never fulfill his maximum potential.

avip 9y ago
No. The potential harm is experiencing failure, in the very field she feels strongly is precious and important to her beloved parents. The potential harm is having a kid less eager to try new things because he's afraid of something.
- adrianratnapala 9y ago
  I'd think "experiencing failure" is only a problem if a parent persistently tries to push something inappropriate. Otherwise it is just part of life and of growing up. The (minor) failure is still a learning experience, just a moral rather than mathematical one.
StevePerkins 9y ago
"avip" nailed it already, better than I could. I'm just replying to say that if your username is "pervycreeper", you might reconsider whether to weigh in on exposing a child to anything...

mudita 9y ago

An interesting case is famous educator László Polgár, who believed that "geniuses are made, not born" and raised his three daughters to become very, very successful in chess with "two of them becoming the best and second best women chess players in the world" (Wikipedia). He did this especially by beginning to teach them, when they were very young - four years old. "Judit was able to defeat her father at chess when she was just five" Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Polgár https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Polgár Another discussion: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/30/hungarian-education-iii-mastering-the-core-teachings-of-the-budapestians/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/30/hungarian-education-iii...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

corpMaverick 9y ago

> I imagine that a good portion of HN's readership (and probably MathOverflow.com's) were intellectually gifted as children. Or at the very least, remember themselves that way. Not gifted. But definitely curious.