Sonya,

Regarding Hamlet and reading, I did similar to what I mentioned earlier with basic math, where I gave up on David understanding concepts (i.e., I didn't care if he knew what 2 plus 3 meant in the real world, I just wanted him to say "5"), figuring, correctly, that he would backfill as he got older.

In the case of reading, I only cared, initially, that he could read words.  I didn't care if he had any clue what they meant, or if he stopped at punctuation breaks.  So he, initially, ran right through the end of sentences into the next one.  I figured if he could read easily, then I'd worry about punctuation, rather than hitting him all at once with everything.  But when Hamlet came around, I saw a chance to put an end to that, and used it to have him learn punctuation and role-playing.  By role-playing, all I mean was that he would try to speak with the same voices that the characters have...if female, he would speak with a high voice, if the ghost, he'd speak with a "scary" voice, etc.

By the time he finished the book, I was done teaching him reading.  Also, over the next few years, he back-filled any gaps, so that worked just as good for reading as math...and would probably get me expelled as a teacher anywhere in the country.

To Tamsyn,

I've pretty much said what I can on Sight Words.  Like your FIL says, they are a disaster for older kids.  For kids less than 3 years, who knows?  But one thing that I did learn in researching Sight Words, again regarding older kids, was how their brains got confused as to which method to use as they came across words.  It probably would have been better to simply not teach them reading until 3rd or 4th grade, if the alternative is only sight words.  But for super-young kids, I'm simply out of my league...although I can't imagine better results than I got with David, doing phonics-only, starting at age 3.5.

Hi PokerDad - here's my reply:

"I had been meaning to ask you (though off topic) what Thomas Sowell books you had read. I've gone through Race & Culture and have a few others on audio book that I haven't gotten to yet. I started reading his articles that come out every week or so in Investors Business Daily... mostly since I had read your Amazon review that talked about him."


I read "Inside American Education" about 15 years ago, and any thought of me sending my kid to public school was quashed - it's that good, and nothing's changed.  He has more footnotes and references than I've ever seen in one place.  No one disputes him, simply because it's not possible.  He's a legend.  I first started reading his columns in college, incredible insights.  I haven't read him much lately, but he does talk about how he grew up as a black in Harlem well before the civil rights movement, and how, back then, kids like him were given expectations, not excuses.  He's certain that he would have ended up as a street thug if he grew up now, in that place.


"Sadly, I think you'll find (especially if you look and think about it hard enough) that most of the social structures in the USA as currently in place, are now a mechanism to disable the typical citizen. It's quite disheartening. I don't think it's "one side or the other" that's primarily responsible but perhaps the system itself that enables self-interest at the highest levels. I'll give you an example that is on topic of this thread"

I do think it's primarily on one side, based on what I've seen since college.  That is very, very, difficult for people to accept - but bad, malicious, people tend to congregate together throughout history, and good, well meaning people, simply allow it, because they cannot bring themselves to accept what these people really want and have in store for them.  For example (without getting too political), when someone says that our country is overpopulated, that scares me, because if they really believe that, then they'll feel compelled to do something about it, if they get power.


"So David will soon graduate with a Masters in Mechanical Engineering. For the typical student (i.e., a product of the system), this means they'll be around 24 or 25 years old if they hurry through - they'll likely be a hundred grand or more in debt and will have given up 6 years of prime working age to pursue academics. Higher education is one of those systems that is currently lining the pockets of some members of society while simultaneously robbing the client (the citizens). I've yet to hear a single politician discuss why this is happening, and in fact, only hear solutions that actually feed the problem. Making student loans more affordable (lower interest rates) is not the same as making education affordable - and the two are actually polar opposites."

I couldn't agree more.  The other interesting aspect of college is that, essentially, it is the only product that I know of which is priced according to one's ability to pay.  That's done through 'financial aid' which includes grants and loans.  If you make less money, you pay less, if you make more, you pay more (up to the insane sticker price of private schools).  Ever see that at Walmart, or buying a car or a house?   That just shows how far out of whack, and maybe even illegal, the pricing system is for colleges.  And yes, if the government gave everyone a voucher for $10,000 for buying a new car, and assuming that production of new cars didn't respond (as colleges generally add capacity very slowly or not at all), then guess what - new cars would cost just about exactly $10,000 more, and the UAW (and auto companies) would be the  ones benefiting, not the buyers.


"The result is that you have students coming out of college in excess of 100,000 in debt; often times you have parents that have crippled their financial situation at a time when they could ill-afford it, and this happens in tandem with the monstrous debt or in lieu of it. Coupled with the opportunity costs of gaining traction in a career (especially at a time like this - which by the way - will only get worse in the US) really has made it frequently a stupid choice to pursue education. Three years ago I had to make a personal choice to pursue an advanced degree or not. I really wanted to, but decided to use the cash to buy a house outright. I'd have my doctorate right now, but am reading how the employment in that particular field is so abysmal that it could hardly justify the sacrifice, and that is why I sadly made the choice that I did."

Good call on your part.  I had some 'debates' with my wife as to whether David should get a PhD also.  I simply didn't see the benefit in it and I remember the nightmares that some people were having in graduate school (I have a Master's in EE) trying to finish their PhD's.  It seemed the university was almost keeping them there as slaves, with some pushing something like 8 years there trying to finish.  The math simply doesn't work out, when you compare it to entering the workforce with a lower degree, at least in engineering.  As it was with David, he doesn't want to go further and he's an adult now, so it's his call.  On broader view - people who work with their hands can make a lot of money, and skip the college game, and, especially the debt.  Heck, I live like a king here in Texas, simply because I've done both - I work as an engineer and virtually no one else (other than David) ever lays a finger on my house or my cars.  There's a lot of money to be made there in the trades, and I've learned them well enough to keep that money to myself...but for others, just learn the stuff well (wiring, plumbing, AC repair, or auto repair, etc.), and the opportunities are endless.


"My point is that David does not have to worry about opportunity costs. By the time his peers get their masters in mechanical engineering, David will have SIX full years under his belt. That could prove to be a lifetime in the sense that he might be the guy on the other side of the table in a job interview (okay, I might be overstating, but you get the idea)."

Thanks, I've thought about that and agree.  He was young, and really couldn't work.  He was also small (not any more, now full-sized), and he struggled to work on cars and bend #12 wiring on to screw terminals.  But that's over, and now he's likely stronger than myself.  In other words, you try to finish off educating the kid before that tradeoff becomes necessary.  Earlier this year, a doctor had done the opportunity cost trade that you mentioned, comparing himself to a UPS driver, who started that job right after high school (it was on the web).  The doctor eventually came out ahead but not until he was almost 50 years old.  He simply took the amount of hours he put into his education and practice and the eventual revenue - and compared it to a UPS driver starting at maybe $12 per hour, working the same number of hours (including OT).  It was amazing - and we're not even talking the trades here.


"It's not inconceivable that your actions saved your son in excess of $400,000 in lost wages and tuition. That's a really sizable chunk of money."

Agree - since David wasn't going to go public school, regardless, the college tuition money would have been spent on high school and junior high school tuition, so that was a push for us.  Texas A&M has a job fair this week, we'll see what (if any, just to cover myself) offers he might get.  Assuming that he actually finishes this semester in good standing, he's done and can start work at age 18.5, with a Master's.  Although it sounds a bit selfish, he could even help us (wife and I)out for a while if my job disappeared (my wife doesn't work), and we lost 3 of 8 power channels on the Space Station last week (we've since recovered 2 of them) - simply because he doesn't have debt or a family to worry about.  But, for now, we don't need his money, so he keeps it.


"Who does it serve to create a generation of serfs? Hmmm. Sadly, they are not of the age nor wisdom to see how they're being fleeced and robbed blind. Current political polling tells me all I need to know on this matter."

Agree.  I even see it with David's friends from UH, who are engineering graduates, in their early 20s.  They're making good money (~80k) in petro-chem, but seem to blow it as fast as it comes in.  I've had some 'discussions' with him regarding meeting up with them and 'going to lunch' as they seem find places that I would never even dream of taking my wife, just due to the cost.  As for debt - that's simply a human weakness - two thirds of people (in my estimation) will simply grab money that's held out in front of them and worry about paying it back later (hence the housing bubble/crisis).  I'll never forget that when we finished building our house and had something like $40k left available in our construction loan (we ran the project), I told the loan officer that I didn't want that money - he was SHOCKED.  No one rejects that kind of money.  And...if I didn't have to pay it back, sure,  I would have taken it too.


"Regarding math in today's school. You really were spot on. They didn't start teaching me until I was in 8th grade!  I remember being in middle school in particular, and hating my math teacher because she seemed so stupid. The specific memory I had was when she was teaching how to calculate cubed volume. This is really simple stuff - and the way she talked down to us, I was so offended. The worst was when she required that we put the measurements for length, width, and height in the "proper order"... which pissed me off to no end because my child logic told me that if you turn the box in any direction, the multiplication problem doesn't change nor does its answer."

Yep, and people blindly trust their kids to that system.  What I remember when I was young was having a great 6th grade math teacher (honor's math)...and then entering junior high where 3 or 4 other schools were folded in.  Guess what, their math teachers were not as good.  So we spent the first 8 months doing arithmetic, and the last month in a very-compressed pre-Algebra - when most of the school year should have been pre-algebra.  I had 100% on every grade in the first 8 months (knew it all inside out).  I collapsed into B's and (mostly) C's once Algebra started, and right through college.  I'll never, ever, forget that.  That was a driver in my life.  The other driver was going bowling with friends before they had automatic scoring machines.  I could add up my score instantly - probably due to bowling twice a week.  The other kids struggled like hell to add up their scores (this is 5th through 8th grade).  I guess the 'improved' math they were teaching did not see a need for arithmetic anymore.  I can give a similar example for reading.  Given all of that, there was no way in hell that I would let a virtual stranger ever teach my kids something that important, never.


"This particular school left me in remedial math during my 7th grade year while the kids exposed to a few more concepts had pre-algebra. At the end of that year, they tested EVERYONE on how well they could LEARN math. I scored near the top and placed into algebra for 8th grade.... I remember when I took Algebra 2 in high school... I finished the class in February and sat around twiddling my thumbs for months goofing off while everyone else caught up. This happened because I had a teacher that did worksheets and allowed me to study on my own."

See, it took you 6 months to finish Algebra 2.  Had 'the system' allowed you to continue at your pace, you would have finished off another year of math (at least if you include the summer).  That was exactly David's pace at the Algebra 2 level - he was nothing special (a nice kid, though), I simply took advantage of the time that was available to him.


"When I look back, I could have learned so much more in mathematics - but the system, geared to teach to the lowest common denominator, failed me."

Yea, that's a given.  Like I've said a number of times, I know the mindset of the people that run the system.  They simply want equalization of results, and they do not care at what level that is.  I once read an article that said credit card companies consider people that pay off their cards every month (like me) to be 'deadbeats', in the sense that we're not helping their bottom-line very much (i.e., no interest or penalty charges).  Likewise smart kids, to the schools, are, essentially, looked at in the same way - as a nuisance that they have to endure.  I really think some of them consider an advanced kid as an abused kid (by their parents) and want to 'save' that kid from further abuse - be ready for that.


"I remember helping a few of my friends with their math in high school and was shocked at how horrible the teachers were. They made simple concepts difficult, and in turn, the students felt stupid (IMO)."

Dr. Sowell is clear that the people that go to the "Schools of Education" are not the brightest in the lot, so that doesn't help to begin with.  Second, these "Schools of Education" spend all of their time in theoretical crap and don't bother teaching their students how to actually teach kids.  And then they politicize the students.  There is absolutely no way that Whole Language and Fuzzy Math could have be where they are today, without teachers actually wanting, badly wanting, those failed approaches - and there are surveys that prove it.


"I will not allow my little boy to be processed like this. That's why I'm here. I do have a bit of a hurdle - my wife is one of those educators, and I see fallacious thinking everywhere and beliefs that are proven (via cognitive psychology studies) to be false and yet the system just churns out dogmatic BS which in turn, cripples the populace."

Sorry about your wife...I can't help much there.


"Why does the system allow fully capable children to just sit there like dummies? Just remembering all this stuff has me angry as can be."

You answered that:  Lowest Common Denominator.  If you randomly grab 20 cars off the street, and have them all drive 500 miles as fast as they can, there will be a lot of drivers waiting around at the end for the race to end.


"I'm with you Robert. Not in my house. I'm specifically here on a early learning forum because I have a few years before he's school aged - and if I can get him off to great start, they won't have the chance to mess him up."

My sample set is limited, but I'm convinced that just about any kid can do this.  Best of luck there, and remember what I always tell parents - make sure that junior knows who's in charge, and it's not subject to negotiation, ever.


"Regarding the goal of equality. It will never be achieved. It cannot ever be achieved in education in any form (including equal "opportunity") nor can it ever be achieved as an economic outcome even under the most severe Marxist ideals. The only way you might have some form of equality in education would be to adopt policies of eugenics - and we're not the Third Reich so that won't happen (nor am I saying that it should). Even though there's little we can do, it's not to say that our current system is tenable. Every where I look I see people talking about "it's the middle class stupid" - these people, all the way up to types like Robert Reich, are either liars or imbeciles on the topic; I've yet to hear a single one of these political types mention fractional reserve lending and how it has stripped wealth from the people. Oh well I guess. Not much I can do about it."

Well stated...that's obvious to us, but not to everyone.


"But the education system in our country is so misplaced it's not even funny. There is something I can do about that - I can take matters into my own hands the way you did."

Exactly.  You don't need to participate on their terms.  That's what I did.  You will get flack, maybe lots of it, so be prepared.  Even family and close friends often think a kid is being abused because you have him do math problems for 3 hours a day, rather than sitting like a zombie in front of a TV screen or 'saving the world' in his video games for those 3 hours (even if he still has other hours to be a zombie).


"I think you've nailed it, so no need for me to continually beat the dead horse while among the choir."

Yes, this was a fun post to reply to.

"I understand too well about not talking about your child's sucess. I have upset a few parents who think they have failed their children because they can't read at 2. I feel sad for their insecurities."

I hear you.  My problem was that I wasn't able to tell what was going on.  In the end, who was I?,  compared to the 'experts' that have dedicated their lives and careers to the betterment of children.  What was doubly-bad for me was (and is) that I'm a political animal, and I see political motivation where others simply are unable to (or, more likely, choose not to).  For example, I see the people that run our education system as being driven to 'equalize' things.  First, to equalize the kids in the schools, and then to equalize the country (as compared to other countries).  Most people cannot accept that, but I've read enough Thomas Sowell books, lived in their dorms, read their newspapers (every one I could find) and went to their teach-ins - so I have zero doubt that I'm right.  I'm not saying that everyone in this system has bad intentions, because I don't believe that's so - but I do think that about the ones at the top, the decision makers, the union leaders, virtually to the person, are like that.

So, for parents, to knowingly hand over their kids to this system, after hearing me describe it that way, would be the ultimate act of child neglect.  So it's easier to simply write me off as a nutcase, and instead trust those really sweet teachers, who just love the kids.


"And recently I was talking to my son's early intervention teacher about his reading and math success and another parent overheard and said that it was monstrous that I was teaching my son these things so early."

It was funny.  At work, a older guy, really smart, but with no social skills (simply not liked by our team or anyone else that got near him), tried to convince me that I was "pushing my kid too hard".  I politely brushed him off.  I then tried that on my wife - she wasn't quite as diplomatic as me, LOL.  But even my mom asked the same thing.  Yes, I was "pushing him" as he felt he had better things to do with his time back then.  But, like I said before, your kids don't win in this country by conforming to "the system", and every one of my wife's friends knew that (they're all immigrants from Taiwan) - and every one of their kids were in after-school learning programs, and usually also on Saturdays.  Yes, Asian kids are generally smart, but 95% of why they do better in school is because they are mostly educated outside of "the system".


"My son loves math. He learnt to read in a fun engaging way as we spent time cuddling together. Monstrous indeed!!"

I agree, but in my opinion, your response is somewhat defensive.  I'd suggest going on offense, and asking those parents why they entrust something as important as the education of their kids (at least for reading and math) to a bunch of virtual strangers with strange-sounding college degrees (and course work), who partied their way through college (and believe me, they did, I was there with them), and have very little accountability regarding the outcome of their students (i.e., as long as 'the system' can keep our present education system in place, there will be a steady flow of 'customers', regardless of results).

Consider that, in contrast to how we're ultimately judged as parents - by whether our kids graduate college, and if so, in what field, and whether they go on to have their own families.  That simply doesn't exist for 'Mrs. Williamson', junior's teacher.

Thanks Keri, I'll try to respond to your posting.

I don't really feel qualified to suggest to parents when to start.  You're approach might be best - if the kid is interested then you start moving out.  But you give a deadline and if the kid has no interest (like mine), you move out anyway, and start the process.  I wouldn't delay teaching reading beyond age 4, as I think any delay after that will lead to a less proficient reader (that's why I get so worked up about the way Sight Words are now used by the schools to delay the onset of phonics).  I think that any normal (non-learning disabled) kid can learn to read at that age.  There's not much to it, I think something like 32 letters and combinations thereof. 

Regarding hand-writing, one thing that was funny was that David had absolutely terrible hand writing and I never cared much...then one day, when he was maybe 13 or 14, literally one day, it became perfect (and stayed that way).  I have no idea how that happened, but it was a bit weird, to say the least.

"So yes, we already have LOTS of advanced math for her age, (including Saxon materials!)"
Nice.  I would suggest that when you start Saxon for real, you make sure junior does every single problem (as Saxon says to) and make sure that junior can fully understand each one.  Understanding 95% of the problems means you are missing a weakness in that 1%.  As a teacher of 25 kids, 95% might be excellent - as a parent of 1 (or a few) kids, 95% is an embarrassment.  There is not excuse for not working with junior until he can do every problem.  That's the huge advantage of parent-taught education, you can be that thorough, but you have to forget what is typically considered acceptable.

"I guess my question would be, if you had it all to do again, would you have waited or started even earlier?" It's a good question.  My starting time was determined almost totally due to luck (totally, in the case of reading...I was clueless until I heard that infomercial).  In the end, 8 years ahead in math, at one point, is more than enough (much more).  Having a kid that can (to this day) spell almost perfectly and read as well as he does (and did) was plenty.  So, I just don't see how he could have gained anything by starting earlier.  One other comment regarding reading - his pre-school was doing phonics when he was age 4 (of course he was reading fluently by then, so it didn't matter for him), but I remember that they were sloooowwww, real slow - as in one letter-sound per week.  That was insane, like I said earlier, I had him reading in 6 weeks - so don't be afraid to keep moving when you start - same with Saxon (of course) - no summer breaks for David.

"Thanks so much for joining us here, and we are all incredibly appreciative to have a successful story, by an outstanding father, to encourage, enthrall, and enlighten us.
What a fantastic job you have done, walking that fine line between encouraging/ forcing/teaching/ leading your young son to greatness!  At he VERY least, the parents in this forum realize what a success/ accomplishment/ sacrifice/ ultimate gift of utter joy you managed to bestow upon your child!"

That is really, really, nice, thank you.  The feeling is mutual.  One thing I learned, the hard way, is that most of my peers consider David as a genius that would have done great in any environment, and me as a politically-charged nutcase that simply hates our schools and teachers, who just want the best for the children.  They are partially right...I do have big problems with "the system", because they seem to drop what works, for untested 'experiments' that always fail (I was about to write "almost always fail", but I couldn't think of a success they've had in decades).  But one of the reasons that I bragged as much as I did (early on) was that I really believed that other parents would be interested in how David got to where he was, and would want to do the same for their kids.  But I think their reaction was more like me calling them failures as parents, for not having kids as 'smart' as David, when they actually (generally) did have kids just as smart - it just never crossed my mind that they would think that way of me.  So, once I figured that out, I simply stopped talking about him and now could care less regarding their kids.  It wound up that only one person that I know from work (and I know many people and most of them know David) ever bothered to ask me how I did it - and she was a Russian immigrant.  She's using Saxon for her kids.

So it's really nice to be on this site - you people seem totally different than just about everyone around me.

"There are more than a few of us who are quite fond of your snarkiness. Please, do not feel constrained."

LOL.   Thanks Sonya, but I've pretty much said as much as I can.  My only experience has been with my kid at age 3.5, and a few others starting a year or so older.  By that age, or certainly by age 4, as you alluded to, it's time for pure phonics.  When they're real little, they may well only be capable of sight words...I simply don't have a basis, or any experience with other kids taught that way.  I would still worry, somewhat, that their little brains get confused by trying to learn reading two entirely different ways...and they are pretty much reading by sight anyway, a year after learning to read by phonics.  The difference being that memorizing the words is subconscious, not something they do one at a time.  Again, my opinions are worth what you pay for them.

Hi Sonya,

Thanks for the info on others here and I agree that I may be overreacting to sight words, in the context that you're speaking of.  My real problem is that they are now used to displace phonics from K through 3rd grade, which is older than Age 4.  I'm not really qualified to make a call on their early use, particularly if combined with real phonics.  So, I'll drop it...as I don't have anything more to say about it.

As to your question, it's an excellent one.  Believe it or not, when I started this adventure, I simply wanted to be the person that taught him the basics, as I had zero confidence in the ability of public schools to teach him, and I wasn't too confident about private schools (I simply cannot bring myself to trust someone that I know hardly anything about, to teach him such important material - I was not going to take chances, even if 99% of other parents don't mind throwing the dice).  So I set a target to keep him 2 years ahead of what he would be taught in school.  That way, if they wanted to do cute stuff like "lattice" multiplication, they were welcome to - but my kid always be able to fake it, do it the right way, and still have the right answer.  But then he started blowing through the Saxon books and that plan was out.  Reading was uncontrollable - I still vividly remember getting annoyed with him regarding the practice we did for the SAT.  I would tell him to read the passages with me.  Then his eyes started wondering - it wound up he was already reading 50% faster than me.

So that leads my answer - it's a really tough call.  If I had to set a criteria, it might be how the kid does with adults.  David never had trouble talking to them.  At one point, David handed me the phone and my mom (his grandmother) said she felt like she was talking to an adult.  He was probably around 6 years old then, but never was shy or withdrawn, or out of place with either older kids or adults.  I think he got that all from my wife, as he certainly didn't get it from me.  Now where it gets interesting is what if his personality was different.  If that was the case, I would have been much more worried about him...and probably would not have had him fully enrolled in college that far ahead a normal age (he was around 12, maybe 13, when he started full-time).  I'll never know...but the most important thing to have a kid who doesn't feel like a freak when he turns 18.  But I also understand the desire to not stall his learning.  It is tough for you - we have community college 8 miles away, and University of Houston 20 miles away.  I didn't want him living out of the house until he was at least 17...he still needed parenting, just to get him to do his homework and study (and he proved that to us one semester when we gave him some slack and nearly flunked his classes...LOL).  We both learned from it.

As to him getting a full education - David probably didn't get that, in your context, of exposure to the great books, as I wasn't much into that either.  He had some, but not much, he didn't like it much and we were more focused on college as a path to a career.  But to that concern, obviously the kid can take a few more classes in college, even if getting a technical degree, and still cover that material - I don't see that as a reason for delaying the start of college.

" I just don't believe that whole word reading is detrimental.  I belive it is a limited method but a great stepping stone into higher level reading.   Giving a child a foundation of 300 or so words they can get a jumpstart reading abut 65% of what is printed."

That's fine...one thing you'll find is parents in my situation have zero respect for what "the experts" believe in.  We've seen these 'experts' systematically destroy education in this country.  People like myself have no training, nothing, in my case just an infomercial, and I had my kid reading fluently by age 4 - we have a tough time being convinced that phonics doesn't work, or that there is any merit at all in other methods.  For "Sight Words", it looks very much like the latest morphing of "Whole Language".  California lost a generation of kids to Whole Language.  You'll see the carnage if you look up in Google:  "California Whole Language Honig".  Bill Honig was the Education Czar and rammed it through in the 1980s, when I lived out there (but before I had kids).  He later, much later, said that he had been tricked by some ideologues under him.

As to your case, with a 2 year old, and with phonics being used - it may not do as much harm.  I'm on this site because I was invited here, and that because my kid did well, so pardon my bragging, but when a kid can get a 510 on his Verbal SAT at age 10.5, and never saw a Sight Word in his life (not to mention winning just about every spelling bee he participated in), any person would have a very difficult time convincing me that anything could improve results.  But my anger regarding Sight Words is not what you're doing and if the schools did the same, the country would be much, much better off.  My anger is the way they are using Sight Words to delay teaching phonics - with the certainty that the kids will never be good readers, unless they're lucky enough to have been taught outside of that system.  Anyway - let's leave it at that - you're being kind, and it's just as well that I stay off of that soap box - because it's very difficult for me to not get worked up.  So on to the next...


"However I have found that the kids get burn out. And sadly they just flat out refuse to do them. Did you ever have this issue with your son with Saxon?"

YOU BET!  He hated it and would scream at me.  He had his toys and he wanted to play with them and not get near reading or math.  Well...reading yes, once he could read, you couldn't separate him from books - but he definitely didn't enjoy the early phonics work...until words started coming into focus - that was pretty neat.  Math he hated all the way through...again, he didn't simply didn't want to learn and saw no practical reason to have to deal with that stuff.

But I made a decision early on - which was that he wasn't going to have a say in what he learned, or on what schedule, when it came to math and reading - it was simply too important for him.  So he had a choice, either do his math when told with a butt that didn't hurt, or do his math when told with a butt that did hurt.  He often picked the latter, probably testing me along the way.  It was tough for me as a parent (and for my wife), being screamed at, particularly with the early phonics, as I didn't even have a clue if it would work...I had nothing to go on, no support group, etc.  For math, at least I had Saxon later on.

As it was, teaching a kid math right up to (but not including Calculus) takes time, obviously.  Reading was a flash - I was done with him in something like 7 months and most of that was him just getting better and better, but math took 5 years, pretty much solid.  But he was rewarded along the way, with a laptop for finishing Algebra 2 and smaller rewards each time he finished any other Saxon book.  I also helped him feel better by explaining that he only needed to learn math once - and then it was over and there was  an end to it (i.e., I'm not able to teach Plasma Physics because I don't understand it and Saxon doesn't cover it)....so that helped.

He was just a very normal kid, and the last thing a kid wants to do at that age (or at just about any age) is sit down with a pen and paper and do numbers.

I agree with you on Tiger Mom, in general.  You can see from above that Ms. Chau and I agreed that the kids are the last ones that should be setting the agenda.  But it wasn't like life was pure hell for David, he had a lot of fun, even sleepovers with friends, did get to play with his toys a lot - but did not have much television - that was where I took his time from.

I think her (Amy's) fixation with music is overkill, and I had to deal with the exact same thing, as my (Asian) wife also insisted that David learn Piano and Violin.  He did, pretty well, but screamed about it...and I, at most, reluctantly supported my wife (to keep the marriage together), but never thought it was worth a dime.  And it wasn't - no one that I've ever interviewed with has cared about whether I can play music (and I can't)...and David had reading and math down-cold well before playing those things - so that rationalization didn't work either.

"Much to my detriment he does know the letters names from a toy and a few apps that he has played"
There's nothing wrong with letter names.  He'll learn them no matter what.

"And honestly although being taught phonics at a young age I am now a whole word reader from lots of practice."
This one you will never, ever, get me to agree with (but you're welcome to ignore me too).  I've had this debate before.  If you ask David whether he sounds out words, he'll tell you he doesn't, and probably hasn't done it since he turned 5.  I don't do it and I don't know any adult that sounds out words (other than hard ones).  But everyone who reads had to learn phonics - they may have forgotten that they did, but try memorizing 100 Russian words by sight (heck, just try learning 10 words), without being able to make a sound out of them, and then consider capitalization, different fonts, etc, and still ask yourself if you can memorize them all.  And then multiply that by 100 times, at least, to have a basic grasp of reading.  I doubt any kid can do that...certainly not mine.

But it's a free country, and you're welcome to disagree with me...

I figure I'll indulge and put in plug for this bunch, as this was the most amazing thing that I saw when my kid was going to his Christian schools, while I was after-schooling him, and a lot of people can learn from them.
There is an association of Christian schools, called ASCI, that have their own Math Olympics, Spelling Bees, Speech competitions, etc.  David's schools participated, and needless to say, so did David.  David usually won his competitions (he may have lost a few, I don't remember), but this bunch kept popping up, and they were absolutely awesome:
http://imanischool.org/
First, they were absolutely angels regarding behavior, much better than any school.  They came in, sat down, and were quiet - until their one of their own won, and then they would cheer as loud as could be.  And they won a lot...and when they didn't win, they were right up with the best.  There were a lot of schools at these competitions.  David's school, for example, was completely trounced by Imani - only David did well, and no thanks to his school (we never looked at it as anything more than daycare, anyway).
Imani's best area is speech, where they dominated the other schools - in this case 11 other schools.  They wiped them out...
http://imanischool.org/499241.ihtml
My point is that had these kids gone to public schools, or even conventional Christian schools, they would have wound up like most blacks in this country, but instead they dominated.  We're told that quotas are needed for these kids - I was there, there were no quotas - they were spelling the same words and doing the same math problems as well as any "advantaged" group.

Imani uses Kumon Math, which is a lot like Saxon - no fluff, just the basics.  They also teach pure phonics.  With just doing that, they are able to take kids that would otherwise be considered disadvantaged and have them trounce the competition.  That's essentially what I did.  One of the (few) benefits of having an education system designed (in my opinion) to "leave behind" kids is that it is very, very, easy to properly teach an average kid math and reading, and watch him clobber the competition, right through college, as I hope these kids did (although the school only went up to 8th grade).

(whoops, missed this post)

"Thank you so much for your contribution. I too like math to be math and not full of games too. My son is only 2 so we do use a lot of manipulatives for now. But I think I will be phasing them out in a few years."

You're welcome.  We did nothing beyond the alphabet at age 2.  It wasn't until age 3.5 that we started reading.  As far as math, one thing I figured out early was that the kid does not need to know the meaning of what's being taught.  I tried for weeks to teach David that 3 apples plus 2 apples meant 5 apples.  He simply couldn't get it.  I finally gave up and went abstract - I didn't care if he knew what "3" or "2" meant, all I cared about was that 3 plus 2 equaled 5 and that was it.  I figured that he would backfill the meaning of the numbers later.  He did.  It worked great.  As I mentioned earlier, we after-schooled, so I figured his day school would fill in any blanks that I left (like that gaping one).


My son is currently a sight word reader,  however. I completely agree with the value of phonics. He just isn't getting the blending yet. He can sound out a few words with great difficulty. I know that this is something that will click in time.

I'd recommend jettisoning sight-words, completely (since I was invited here for my comments).  I took a very basic Russian-language class at work.  They don't even have letter-names - everything is sounds there.  I think that sight words simply mis-wires the brains of the little guys.  If I wanted to get political (so feel free to ignore), I'd say it's intentional - to assure that the kids never become good readers.  I base that on my understanding that in 3rd (maybe 4th, grade), they then go to phonics.  Sight words almost seem to be designed to delay the onset of actually learning to read, and that is inhumane (in my opinion).  But, at age 2, it probably doesn't hurt - but I strongly recommend you get clear of that approach.


"I love how you accelerated your son's education by enrolling him into a community college at a young age. I think your method was brilliant. It is something to consider in 10 or so years. I can still teach him content and how to learn, but he may as well be going on and trying for a higher education diploma on the side if he is able."

Thanks.  We were also out of options.  At one point he was 8 years ahead of age in math.  He either would have been doing nothing most of the days, so on to college.  One thing we did do, that kept him there a bit longer, was to make sure that he had biology and chemistry, just as if he had been in high school - we didn't want him to miss that stuff, even if he really didn't need it.

"I actually have very few friends that met their spouses  in college. In fact i cant think of any off the top of my head. I have 4 friends that met theirs spouses in HS. The rest met in other ways. "

That was my case.  Indirectly through work.  I had a coworker that moved to another city.  I went to visit him, told him that I was looking for a wife (LOL).  He found me one.  I know one couple that met in high school (maybe earlier), still married.  I know one other in college - long since divorced.  I tend to agree that Mrs. degrees are not what they might have once been.

"Robert, I am so excited. to see you here."

Like I've said, I'm happy to (finally) be among parents that seem to actually be willing to do what it takes for their kids to do well, rather than trusting an institution that may or may not have have his best interests in mind.


"I have a son who recently turned 6 and is working on Saxon 5/4, along with some other math. We came to Saxon through a self teaching mindset and it had been recommended that they know all of their facts automatically (all operations through the 12's) before starting 5/4."

Agree and actually we were far beyond that.  I had David dividing fractions and doing huge multiplication problems problems prior (and he hated me for it).  That was more because I had not heard of Saxon, rather than thinking it was needed.  I simply didn't have a plan at first.  But, yes, if you start at 5/4 arithmetic facts must be automatic first.  There's a lot to 5/4 that goes way beyond just number manipulation.  I think the biggest problem is that kids struggle with stuff that they should have learned earlier...which is tragic.  Just teach them that stuff before pushing ahead, and they're never behind.


"My son has all his facts mastered, but still calculates some out, for example he will skip count occasionally to get to the answer in division."

Sorry, don't follow.


"My question for you is if you required your son to have his facts mastered to automaticity prior to starting 5/4 and if not did you just have him do the recommended 100 warm up problems before each lesson or a more extensive review of all 4 operations?"

5/4 does contain the warm-up, but I'd get him through them first.


"Right now we have Blaise do all flashcards in all operations and/or one hundred timed problems in each operation prior to his lesson. He does them quickly maybe 7-8 minutes a sheet so it's not huge commitment, but I was wondering if the Saxon program alone will get him the math fact automaticity he needs."

Maybe the earlier years of Saxon might, but we didn't use them.  I'd recommend that junior be able to do those basic problems first, prior to hitting up 5/4.  But I don't consider myself expert in that area.

I'm still in a state of shock to find people that are actually interested in how I (we) did it, rather than simply smiling and thinking my kid is a freak with a big brain.  So I'm more than happy to know parents like you guys really exist.  I shall try to answer the questions...


"Do you believe any parent can accelerate their child in mathematics, or does the parent need to know advanced mathematics themself before imparting to the child?"

I guess it depends on one's definition of "advanced mathematics".  Being an engineer, I've got the advanced math.  But I basically stopped trying to even teach David any math when he started Calculus...at that point it was just staying on top of him and making sure he was doing what was expected in class (and that he never, ever, missed class).  One thing that was pretty funny was that David got quite popular in his classes, so he rushed to get his homework done early so he could help others (obviously I advised him not to simply give solutions).  But, yes, it probably would have been tougher if I didn't know the materials.  If that were the case, then I'd only be able to tell him if his answers were right or wrong, but not really steer him.  But, again, if you got through even Algebra 2 before finishing high school, you can do wonders.  Starting him in college at Calculus 1 is not necessary, instead starting him with pre-calc is perfectly fine...and to get there, you just need to complete Algebra 2 (at least per Saxon).


Did you use Saxson all the way up through Calc 1? If not, at what point did you change texts? Would it be too difficult to give a list of the texts that you used up through Calc 1? I ask because I've already purchased a handful of older 90s Saxson texts and if you feel the higher mathematics Saxson texts are still the best, then I'll get those too (such as Algebra, Trig, Calc)

Almost.  I stopped after finishing Saxon's "Advanced Mathematics" which is their pre-calc.  That book was a lot of work to get through, and I made him start at the very beginning (earlier, I would skip 20 to 40 chapters, simply because he didn't need the review).  Once done with that book, he was good to go for college Calculus (it is an outstanding book), so I didn't bother with Saxon for Calc. 1 (although I still have the book, along with Physics, which I didn't use much either).  One thing that I did do, which is a bit tricky these days, is come up with Log and Trig tables.  I made him use them instead of calculators (until just about at the very end), which Saxon (unfortunately) starts to use at the higher levels.  I simply don't see a place for calculators in mathematics.


Did you do after school teaching, or did you at some point do exclusive home schooling?

After school.  Home schooling with him was hopeless, we tried one semester, when he had maybe 2 college classes.  We bought Abeka, but our kid was normal, and gamed the system.  My wife tried, but she wasn't born here (Asian), so it wasn't too hard for him to trick her into thinking he was working, when he wasn't.  But that was later.  At the beginning, it was before school (if you can believe that), after school, on weekends, on vacation (but only when there was nothing else to do on long drives).  Overall, his learning of reading and then math took the place of video games and TV.  It was that simple.  Young kids have a lot of time, but they also require near-continuous attention from parents.


Could you walk us through a typical day (when you were really hitting the math hard)?

Wow, I'll try.  I think (but not sure) that I would wake him at about 0700, we'd do one section of (early) Saxon, and then I'd go to work and he'd go to his Christian school.  He'd come home from school, and I'd come home from work a bit later.  We'd try to get through 2 sections in the late afternoon/evening, although 1 was fine for a weekday.  He'd go to sleep at about 2100, he was more than happy to go to bed and was out immediately (a nice benefit of our routine that holds to this day).  At school he was taught to be respectful and keep his hand down most of the time, so as not to hurt the feelings of other kids...but if asked, he'd answer questions.  Never a problem, and did fine making friends.  If he EVER said something to make me think he thought that he was something special, he regretted it, for I raked him over the coals for that.  It was rare, and usually my misunderstanding, but he got the point.  I've always said that if I wrote a book about raising kids, the title would be "You Ain't Shiite", except you can replace that last word with the word you're thinking of.  And believe me, I said that to him a number of times, flat-out.  He got the point, and has never been on one of those "Save the World" kicks that prodigies think they can do.


You mentioned David taking the SAT at 10 years old. Was this due to a requirement at the junior college or for some other purpose (such as taking the AP exam just to prove it)?

The SAT was required.  He needed a 500 in math to take Math classes, and a 500 in Verbal to take other clasessn (he squeaked that one with 510).  I think it's the way that Texas makes sure that little punks wanting to take college course aren't trying to game the system to get out of having to endure the public schools.  In other words, if you want to go to college at a high-school age (or younger, in this case), you need to show that you're college material.  It makes sense to me.


Along those lines, when did you approach the junior college for admittance and how simple or smooth was the process?

That was luck.  It wound up that my wife took some math classes there and then talked to her teacher, who just happened to run the department.  She wound up having to check with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (and no, I had no clue that they existed) to see if it was ok to have such a young kid.  They never specified a minimum age, so he was good to go, providing he had the SAT scores.  My suggestion to others is to have solid proof that junior is up to it, like SAT scores and be prepared to have junior interviewed to see if he's up to it.


Stated another way, what sort of obstacles, if any, did you encounter in attempting to get David admitted to the junior college?

None...just needed the SAT scores.  But this is Texas.  Overall, I think it's usually doable, if the kid can act mature and has the scores.  The public schools are a different story if you want to accelerate your kid, however, because David would be considered a "distraction" in their line of reasoning.


Does David feel as though he missed out socially by attending college early? If not, how was he able to satisfy the urge to enjoy friendships that typically blossom "in school"?

Not a bit.  He was going to church every week and had (and has) very close same-age friends.  We (wife and I) did all we could to nurture those friendships and he was happy with how it turned out.  Even so, it's tough because he's not in the same classes and lunch rooms as those kids - he only saw them once a week.  But he's keep close to them.  At San Jac. (junior college) he made some friends from their "Gaming Guild" which I never liked but he enjoyed it - you can probably figure out what it was about.  He still stays in touch with them.  At Univ. of Houston, he got very close to a number of people that were ~5 years older than him.  They would go as far as to eat out at a place where he would be admitted, before going off to the real bar scene.  One of them once said, to the effect:  "you seem like a normal college person, which is amazing considering your age".  He related great with them.  As I mentioned earlier, he has zero regrets regarding missing high school and rates his childhood as an 11, on a scale of 1 to 10.  So, in the end, if your kid is taught to respect people that struggle to learn what Saxon taugh him, he will be just fine.


I met my wife in college. I know many others that also met their spouse in college. I'm by no means saying that college is the only place to meet someone, but I will say that I had spent a few years in the real world prior to college and I found that meeting a like-minded co-ed is far easier to do in a college environment than grinding out hours at work... Do you think attending college at a younger age is, in anyway, disadvantageous to cultivating a satisfying and fruitful domesticated life?

Fair question.  I agree, he misses that chance, but he's 18 now and if he's doing good at Exxon (or whereever) in a few years, he won't have a problem finding a wife there.  Women are now the majority of college graduates (although not in engineering).  I suspect that he won't have a problem finding someone.  He also has his church connections.  But right now, he just plays it day to day, and after he graduates, he will work, and then, when the time is right, he'll look for a wife.  In my case, it was hopeless at college...so I'm not going to worry much.

You're welcome.  Basically, I heard an infomercial for the Phonics Game when I was driving through Central California in late 1997.  They used an example of sounding out the word "cat", as in kaa-aaa-taa.  I said, jeeze, I can do that, I don't need their product.  I used a marker board, started with that word.  In 6 weeks, at age 3.5, he read his first book (Walter and the Tug Boat), with help, of course, but he learned every word in it.  A couple of months after he was four (not 3, as someone here stated), I had him read Hamlet.  I made him nail the punctuation and play-act the parts, such as being a female when Ophelia spoke.  It was fun, and once through that, I was done teaching him reading.  He wound up being a great writer and great speller, which I have to attribute to phonics at a young age.  So that was reading.

Math started as me giving him "number sheets" as I had nothing else that I liked.  Every book that I saw was "fun" for the kids.  I didn't want that, I just wanted math.  Then he's in second grade at Christian school (age 6, a year ahead), and the teacher has a 4th grade daughter.  My wife asks her for some stuff to challenge him.  She gives us zerox's of problems (from her daughter's book) that were absolutely remarkable.  Then I figure out that they were from Saxon 5/4.  My life got a million times easier, as John Saxon did all the work of figuring out what he needed to learn.  He then raced through those books, especially the early books.  The work did get harder and take longer later on, so the pace slowed.  We also built a house at that time, and ran the project, so that slowed us down.  It was all good for him - he was simply too far ahead, so it was good that he slowed a bit (maybe a year or two).  As it was, he still took his SAT at Age 10.5 and got an 1190 in the old system (680 Math, 510 Verbal).  With those scores, the community college (San Jacinto) let him enroll (he was 11 by then) and he first took Calc-1, then the AP Exam (just to be able to prove to doubter that he knew his stuff, should there be any), and then two classes, and then he finally dropped out of the Christian school and went full time to San Jac.  After his Associate in Math, it was University of Houston, where he got has BS in Math, and BS in Mechanical Engineering.  Now he's (hopefully) in his last semester at A&M and will be done with school for now with a Master's in ME (no PhD at this point, just a good job).  I'm happy with that path.

Feel free to copy my posts if you want to start a new thread.