My experience shows that weak basic skills bring about failure in further math learning (http://www.simplar.narod.ru/Victor_Guskov.doc).

Maybe just the opinion that there is an opportunity of successful mastering more complicated topics without solid fundamentals brings about so sorry state of students' basic math skills? Further on you can read some interesting comments which have been separated into three groups 1) YES 2) BUTS AND IFS 3) NO. YES Carol Nicholson A student that has trouble mastering multiplying or dividing decimals can easily understand concepts such as slope of a line, linear equations, etc. Joy McCutcheon I have had many students to grasp the "algebra" that make simple calculation errors due to being weak on the basics. Matt Tucker If we are saying basic skills= number sense....of course students can take on more complicated tasks. My top honors geometry student had horrible basic computation skills, but would persevere through difficult proofs. We all have strengths and weaknesses.

Allen Macfarlane I voted a yes, based on my high school math experience. I was a C student in math and did not do that well in algebra. However, as a senior I took a course in trigonometry in my first semester and earned an A. I loved doing the proofs and also applying trigonometry to practical problems, something that was lacking in my algebra and geometry classes. Julia Brodsky Times and times again I teach profound math concepts to young children, who are still learning their multiplication skills - and they are enjoying it. Deep topics such as infinity, game theory, graph theory, symmetry, logic and numerous others can be presented to children with very limited arithmetic skills. Calculus can be taught to very young kids, as demonstrated by Don Cohen and others. Math circles are a living example that math is not linear, and can be approached in many different ways. Cecilia Villabona What do we mean by "basic skills" in mathematics? How do we present the concepts to the learners can greatly affect his/her understanding. It is possible to teach the basic ideas and concepts of calculus to very young children, they still need the algebraic fluency to really do derivatives and integrals. In this example, the "basic math" is Algebra. I worked with teachers who often used the phrase: "My students don't know their basic Math, so I can't teach them anything" and they were constantly frustrated trying to teach junior high or high school students how to do long division, or their preferred method to reduce fractions to a common denominator. This produces a lot of frustration for both teachers and students, and yes it becomes impossible to teach anything else because know you have no time, and lots of discipline problems.

So to go back to Victor's question: with good materials and good pedagogy you can teach children the math topics, regardless of their prior knowledge. If students have number sense, they can use calculators effectively for concept development, and with computer aided instruction, students can work individually at their missing "skills" to help them with fluency.