KUMON - do you believe in it?

[mushi]

hi, i have a 4-year old and am facing mental-pressure form my friends who have enrolled their kids into Kumon maths and english....i have read abut it on the web but am not too convinced on their teaching method which i believe is thru rote. anyone with kids in kumon, pls. share yr experiences. what exactly do they teach?.....

[carang]

i've seen their english stuff... not great grammar, vocabulary etc.

their maths is by rote.

why give into pressure? if you are happy with your child's progress, that's ALL that matters!

if someone asks, say, " good for you, my son doesn't need extra work. he's doing just fine already.'

[MilkMonster]

My babies are too young for Kumon BUT, I took Kumon as a child. Just the math parts because I was having trouble with my maths. Can't say it really helped as I still struggled with math all the way through high school and university. I think it's not that helpful unless you can somehow make it fun. Otherwise its a chore to do and I was always rushing to finish my homework before kumon class and I remember really hating it. If your child is having problems with math, i would suggest playing games that involve math concepts.

[mushi]

thanks carang and milk monster, i am happy with what my son is doing currently however we r moving back to india in january and the system out theer is fairly advanced....e.g. a child my son's age would know how to write A-Z, a-z and 1 to 20, my son only knows capitals A-Z and that too just a few.....so when he goes there he will not only face entry probs in school but also would find it hard to cope up.....does KUMON help regarding this? i mean do they teach one to write or do they expect u to write?

[Kly]

I wanted to send my daughter when she was 5yrs to do Maths at Kumon but after speaking to many parents who had pulled their children out of lessons, I decided against it.
It's very much memorising and not much explaining, the children know for example that 2+1=3 but don't know why, they just know the answer.
Also for a 30mins lesson, only 10mins is actually spent teaching, the rest of the time, the child is left to complete work by themselves and as MilkMonster mentions, it's not fun.
I'm sure your son would learn a lot more if you find a tutor that can make lessons interesting and fun.

[peainpod]

My sister has been sending her daughter (now almost 7 yrs old) to do Maths and Mandarin at Kumon for the past few years. I think she does it to help my niece develop some concentration and discipline (apparently she doesn't get any homework from GSIS). But from what I've seen, it is very rote and I know my niece finds it quite tedious.

[wanfamily]

Hi,
I'm a primary school teacher and taught in Japan for 5 years where Kumon is very popular. I also went on some great teacher courses realted to young children's development in maths.
My advice to parents on Kumon was always, if you want to see your child produce rows and rows of neat calculations, fine, but rote learning does not develop a deep understanding or number sense. At a young age (ie before about 7), it is more essential that children gain understanding of maths in a practical setting. There is actually some convincing reearch that suggests that teaching children standard algorithms before they are ready, undermines their understanding of place value. In my 8 years of teaching, I have seen many cases of this and have called parents in to ask them not to teach them the algorithms as it stops the child having to think for themselves. I've got some articles and stuff on this somewhere (on childcare leave at the moment with my own babies), let me know if you're interested.
Good luck,
Cath

[MilkMonster]

Hi Wanfamily, i would really be interested to read your articles, can you share them with me?

thanks again!