Hacker News Reader

Comment by dr42 | Hacker News Reader

Since by 4 most kids know the alphabet I wonder what the long term implications are of learning algebra first. Maybe letters won't feel like parts of words, but instead she'll look at them as problems to solve.

I wonder what the big rush is with children, symbolic manipulation in a 4 year old's world has very little implication. Manipulating her environment through motor skils, developing ever more sophisticated interactions with other children, play etc, all seem to be much more useful. But anything that's fun is very likely good. I wonder how much of the fun is her reading back to you your enjoyment at seeing your offspring participate in algebra. The first rule of being a 4 year old is to please the parents. They, after all, provide everything.

View on HN

I realize that this is purely anecdotal, but may answer your question.

My father got me playing around with programming when I was very young -- I think six or eight years old. Some of my first memories involve our VIC-20 computer.

While a lot of what I did was just typing in simple programs from a book, I did some experimentation on my own, and it became pretty obvious how variables, loops, and the rest worked.

When I hit school I was mathematically so far ahead of everybody else, not because I'm some kind of genius, but because I had already spent a lot of time unknowingly learning algebra.

This was a disadvantage, because the school system wasn't built to cope with a kid that understood algebra before he had memorized the multiplication table.

As an adult, however, I've enjoyed a pretty serious advantage when it comes to understanding abstract concepts, especially anything involving symbolic manipulation, and I think I can thank that VIC-20 BASIC manual from many years ago for it.

I wouldn't be too worried about starting a kid out 'too soon', provided that other areas of the child's mental development aren't neglected in favor of developing mathematical skills.

I had a similar experience. My father and grandfather introduced me to computers and programming at a very young age, and I ultimately taught myself algebra, geometry, and basic trigonometry by age 10.

From fifth grade, I was bored out of my mind during math class. In sixth grade, my math teacher recognized my boredom to be a lack of challenge and decided she should do something about it. I was pulled into the vice principal's office at one point and asked to slow down my at-home learning because the teachers did not know what to do with me during class.

Eventually, we settled on a solution: I became the equivalent of a teacher's aid for my middle school class and tutored other kids who were having difficulty. This instilled a love for teaching that I carry with me to this day.

I don't think we should discourage children from learning at a fast pace as long as they appear to retain the information and it doesn't compromise other aspects of development. On the contrary, we need to find a way to help our education system cope with children learning things outside the classroom.

Symbolic manipulation is a fundamental concept few kids are exposed to early. Providing exposure thereto, thru whatever means, gives her a cognitive tool for applying motor skills, social interactions, problem solving, etc. before any other kids can; this is an advantage.

Indeed, the sheer brilliance of this game is the separation of the concrete blandness of raw numbers and plain symbolic letters (which she's already having enough meaning imputed upon while learning to read) from the pure symbology and entertaining rules applied thereto. That's why I'm a programmer: the joy of symbolic manipulation; this game starts her down the same track.

I gave some positive feedback, yes, but the bulk of that was just acknowledging her excitement in creating a new "monster" and next to nothing about the algebraic content. She took her own interest in the game far beyond any parent-pleasing feedback she got.

Most people develop motor skills just fine, but are not that great with symbolic manipulation. It's not easy to predict the kinds of effects early exposure to this kind of stuff can have on a human being in the long term, but it may be significantly positive (and maybe even negative).

I think an important idea to keep in mind is opportunity cost. Don't approach this as: they want to remove other things from the core curriculum to make room for this symbolic manipulation game.

We're talking a couple hours of fun, and the chance that math won't seem so scary in high school.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com