Algebra from a 6Y.O.

[Shannow]

Sheldon needs eggs...4 dozen. My son asks what's a dozen...it's 12 mate. 15 seconds later...so he wants 48 eggs ? Yeah mate, how did you do that ? I did 4x2 which is easy and added 4x10, which is also easy.

 

[Torino]

Thats good. Engineers do it all the time. You break a situation down into small simple parts. The kid has a great future. John--Las Vegas

 

[Silk]

I must be as smart as a 6 year old. Apparently I have a form of dyslexia called dyscalculia....dyslexia with numbers. Probably just an excuse,but higher maths is incomprehensible to me - addition and subtraction with basically fingers,and the 5 and 10 times table. Dumb kids were able to drop maths after the 1st year of high school,so I did. I had to learn to cope, and so 4x10 plus 4x2 was the easy way out....4x10 minus whatever works too. I had an advanced reading age when I was younger, and am still a compulsive reader - I couldn't understand how anyone could fail to comprehend to written word, I was very dismissive of dyslexia. But I can see now - they choke on words like I choke on numbers.

 

[andyd]

Yah we taught the kids this about 6 too. All 3 picked up the trick and had very little trouble with arithmetic.

 

[mpvue]

my kids are taught this way in cyber school, I wish I was taught this way back in the day...

 

[Pablo]

Eggscellent!! I've taught my daughters to break things up. School didn't like my "ways" one bit. Most teachers would not confront me directly only telling my kids "that's wrong". (When the answer was indeed correct). I see their point to a point, but......leaves us thin in the different path department.

 

[Shannow]

He hasn't really been taught it 'though, just seems to be developing strategies to work out what he needs/wants to know. Interesting watching him...Lord I hope he's not an engineer in the making, although I think that's likely . His sister gets all the dance/grace/poise/artsy stuff, which has us wondering where those genes came from.