Kumon maths

[DrMekon]

Anyone had any experience? I am thinking of doing it with my boy, who has just turned 4. He' been adding on his fingers for months, and loves counting games. I've run it by a mate who is a dep head of a primary school, and she thinks that this is a good way to use Kumon, but admitted that it mostly annoys her as loads of her kids get carted of to do it when they start to struggle with specific problems that could be addressed directly. I am hoping to develop a routine of us studying together, and if there's an alternative structured programme anyone could recommend, that'd be great too.

[gordon taylor]

Age four?

Structured programme? Sounds heavy to me.

The best educated kids in Europe are the Finns, I believe, and they don't even start school until seven.

[DrMekon]

It's only a few minutes every day. He's a dilettante the rest of the time,

[CrinklyLion]

He's got 12 (or is it 13 these days - dunno if they made their minds up about that...) years of compulsory schooling ahead of him.  I'd concentrate on continuing with the education that he's already started - counting games and songs and adding on fingers included.  Combined, of course, with large amounts of general being a pre-school dilettante, which is also a rather important part of his learning.  There's a huge number of ways that you can support your child's education and development without needing to structure study at that age, in my opinion.  

I think that education is far more valuable than schooling, and that learning is far more important that knowing at that age.  I'd also be very very wary of pushing children in the foundation stage or Key Stage One too far ahead of the curriculum - as, apart from enything else,  they'll be bored to tears at least some of the time, waiting for everyone else to catch up.  Breadth of learning, on the other hand, can help you to give a bright kid a bit of extra challenge.  I don't have direct experience of the Kumon system but, as Gordy says, I'd personally be wary of a structured programme at that age.

And if he's good at maths already, I think there's a good argument for you to be challenging him to do the things that he finds hard - whether that's singing in tune, sharing his lego, speaking French or tying his shoelaces

[hellymedic]

My kid brother learned much numeracy by sitting atop the supermarket trolley.
He would remember and compare prices from week to week.

Later, Mum taught him to estimate the total cost of the trolley by adding rounded figures. This was a tad disarming at the checkout.

Kid Brother is now a Bright Spark in the City...

[jane]

Kumon will cost you too.  The world is full of maths study for free for a small child- I'd second hellymedic's suggestions-  also you can use car registration numbers, bus numbers when you're out to create all kinds of closed and open investigations into number- there's shape and pattern and symmetry investigation opportunities in the shops, in nature and in your kitchen cupboards. I wouldn't dream of handing money over for something I could get for free.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I'd also be very very wary of pushing children in the foundation stage or Key Stage One too far ahead of the curriculum - as, apart from enything else,  they'll be bored to tears at least some of the time, waiting for everyone else to catch up. 

God yes. I remember being desperately bored in Primary 1 waiting for everyone else to learn to read - I'd been reading reasonably fluently (for a four year old) for months. And I remember being really quite insulted that the teacher was giving me the most basic Peter and Jane when I was reading proper story books at home. I'd have been better off spending school reading time doing sums, because I never did get the hang of that!

[clarion]

Kumon is a good business model.  It trades (perhaps unconsciously) on parental anxiety, especially once yuo are locked into the system.  And it gets very expensive.

Not sure I can comment on the effectiveness, as I'm only aware of a couple of kids who've been through it - one was good at maths & enjoyed it; the other hated it.  Just anecdote.

I think it's best for most kids to learn with their peers, and for that to be supported at home.  The best things you can do for your kid in relation to maths are to instil a sense of curiosity & playfulness with number, and, later, to help explain how systematic working out makes life easier.

[alexb]

My kids learnt more maths from playing Zoo Tycoon and Pokemon than any other source....

[citoyen]

My son went to the local Kumon centre once a week for two and a half years from age 8 to 11. Based on his experience, I would thoroughly recommend it. We chose it because he was struggling in maths through lack of confidence - not lack of ability. For whatever reason, he was struggling at school and needed a bit of extra help of one sort or another. We chose Kumon as the most attractive of the possibilities we looked into.

Kumon uses simple repetetive exercises to help the student get used to the "feel" of numbers. One of my son's biggest difficulties was learning his multiplication tables. He is now supremely confident in maths generally, and has very fast mental maths. He also got to the final of a regional schools maths competition. Not something he was encouraged to do by pushy parents, in case you're wondering - we didn't even know about it until the invitation came through the door.

However, to qualify my endorsement, I would be wary of recommending it for a 4yo because I don't know how a child can benefit from it at pre-school age.

By the way, Clarion - Kumon didn't replace parental support in my son's case, it supplemented it and helped him in ways that I am not qualified to. The way Kumon is structured, it just doesn't work without proper parental support. And I never once felt "locked into the system", nor pressured by the people at the local Kumon centre. In the end, he left because we couldn't fit it in with all his other activities, and we felt that by then he'd got the benefit he needed from it anyway. But there was no difficulty leaving - we just gave notice and cancelled the direct debit.

Sure there are other methods that are cheap or free, but based on my experience, I would say Kumon is good value for money if your child needs extra maths help.

d.

[pcolbeck]

Top Trumps are great for helping with numbers too. Takes the fright away from big numbers and gets kids used to working out what number is biiger than another no matter how large it is (well within reason, they don't use powers in TopTrumps)

[frankly frankie]

Cribbage is a great counting game.

[Arch]

He's got 12 (or is it 13 these days - dunno if they made their minds up about that...) years of compulsory schooling ahead of him.  I'd concentrate on continuing with the education that he's already started - counting games and songs and adding on fingers included.  Combined, of course, with large amounts of general being a pre-school dilettante, which is also a rather important part of his learning.  There's a huge number of ways that you can support your child's education and development without needing to structure study at that age, in my opinion. 

I think that education is far more valuable than schooling, and that learning is far more important that knowing at that age.  I'd also be very very wary of pushing children in the foundation stage or Key Stage One too far ahead of the curriculum - as, apart from enything else,  they'll be bored to tears at least some of the time, waiting for everyone else to catch up.  Breadth of learning, on the other hand, can help you to give a bright kid a bit of extra challenge.  I don't have direct experience of the Kumon system but, as Gordy says, I'd personally be wary of a structured programme at that age.

And if he's good at maths already, I think there's a good argument for you to be challenging him to do the things that he finds hard - whether that's singing in tune, sharing his lego, speaking French or tying his shoelaces

For what the opinion of a childless person is...  +1 to this. 

[rogerzilla]

Cribbage is a great counting game.

Darts is even better 

[Bendy Bianchi]

My 5 year old *loves* doing maths, I get tears before bedtime unless we do some. I have always used the "Maths made easy" books for all of my kids, they seem to really enjoy them.