Kumon - Why would this be necessary for top of the class (and youngest) Y2 child?

[emlu67]

My DD is probably just below average at Maths (which we are addressing) but her best friend is exceptionally bright and despite being the youngest in the class is top for everything.

This child has two older sisters in grammar school and I just wondered why the parents think it is necessary to send her to Kumon Maths every week. What are they learning at school for 6 hours a day? Is this really necessary to get her into grammar school? Personally I would prefer my DD to spend her time enjoying being a child and enjoying other sorts of activities, there is plenty of time for studying later!

Thoughts please...

You are talking complete sense to me. The parents of the other child, however, imo need to re-address their priorities if they consider Kumon is needed at that age, and given her circumstances.

Mad.As.A.Box.Of.Frogs.

Maybe the child loves it. Dd1 would happily do maths papers most days since before she went to school and she's now in Yr5. If she gets a WhSmiths voucher she's just as likely to buy a book of maths papers as a reading book... and she loves reading too.
Dd2 likes to do them occasionally, but I suspect wouldn't be interested if it wasn't for the enjoyment she sees her big sister get from them.

I know someone who had the identical situation. I couldn't understand it either!

In our school we've had children who have been doing Kumon since Reception, they've started ahead and maintained their lead in maths and are now in the top group in Y2. What makes their child 'exceptionally bright'? I was interested in this comment. Is this child really any brighter than your child? There might be genetic differences in ?intelligence? but there is a huge variation around the base point that depends on encouragement, self belief, mind set, experience and practice. I can see why parents would take a 'bright' child to Kumon, I've seen so many examples whereby a child that starts ahead stays ahead.

Many are against tutoring, hot housing, homework for primary children, Kumon and similar. As you say it's important that children have lots of fun away from their studies too. It's curious though, looking at friends with 'bright' children they extend them every day, walks to school involve fun chats and games about times tables, prime numbers for the older ones etc. When they get home they organise treasure hunts which involve the children writing the clues themselves as well as the parent. The questions relate to general trivia, maths, literacy etc. This happens for a short burst most days. The children get incrementally smarter. Others are what I call the '20 minute a day parents' these will give their children some form of literacy or maths work to do each day, which might be about extending them sideways or a page in a book from WH Smiths. Many will point to an articulate child who can manipulate numbers and decide they are brighter than another and then a self fulfilling prophecy comes into play.

These parents enrich and extend their children every day, far more than could be achieved with an hour with a tutor once a week or Kumon sessions. They are combining a 'tutoring' aspect to help with weaknesses here and now whilst at the same time instilling a love of learning. There are more of these than many imagine and so many (IMO) point to these children and make decisions they are smarter than others. If anyone is interested Mumsnet has organised a Q&A session with Matthew Syed (author of 'Bounce') which touches on some of these themes. It's over on the secondary education board and some very interesting questions have been posted there, I am really curious to see what he says.

Insomnia strikes again :)

Why is it often assumed that children who do extra academic stuff outside of school arent swimming, cycling etc??
Dd (7)tried Kumon for a few weeks but got fed up with it eventually. Always her choice. She really enjoys doing science, maths and literacy type stuff at home as well as all the other stuff mentioned. Should I really stop her???

Cortina - how do you know if the '20 min a day' is cause or correlation?

I 'extend' my DD for 20 mins a day - and she remains absolutely the bottom of the class.

I don't 'extend' DS2 ever - and he remains stubbornly at the top of the class.

It would appear to the outside world that I 'extend' DS1 - who again is persistently at the top of the class (in some subjects by a large margin). We certainly talk for 20 mins a day about everything. Who I vote for. What the UK should do about Libya. How to cure global warming. What's the best way to set up a colony on Mars. Is there any racial discrimination in the UK.....

But I don't initiate those conversations. He does! Because he is bright. He reads widely and is interested in the world.....

He appears bright because he is bright. We haven't deliberately extended him. He has constantly extended himself. But to you it would look like I was a '20 min day' parent with him.

I don't know whether your '20 min a day' theory is from personal anecdotes or you read it in a book. But it is very, very hard to work out what is cause and what is correlation........

agree with indigo

and oh my god, "fun chats and games about times tables, prime numbers" sounds hideous (and reminds me of my friend who makes her incredibly bright kids listen to french linguaphone tapes on the school runs lest any opportunity for learning be passed by)

Are there really parents out there who organise treasure hunts with maths clues after school on a regular basis???

I have what appear to be bright children although as they are reception and year 2 I generally feel they could well get overtaken as others in their classes get "better".

I don't do enriching activities. The thought of treasure hunts is painful. Our journey to school (admittedly very short) consists of DS scooting ahead, me trying to manage all the multitude of bags and then we're there .

There are no workbooks here (I'd only lose them). I do make sure DS does his homework, check his spellings the night before and listen to DD reading (probably not as often as I should but I don't have any concerns with her).

Not sure I fit the Cortina mould there :)

I talk to them and answer questions. And then let them watch Total Wipeout for what is possibly the the 73rd time for the same episode.

:) at views on treasure hunts. Indigo, I will be really interested to see what Matthew Syed comes back with at the end of the week, some points raised along these lines.

I believe, as many know, it's possible to get smarter, I am living proof. I was bottom of the class in primary school, or close to it. I know that being viewed as a bit dim stayed with me, a bit like my hair colour, as I rose through the years. Human beings label and categorise, it's how we are wired. The tracking mentality in my school made it hard to progress beyond expectations. I believe if anyone had told me I could smash expectations with a different mindset I would have. My set, table etc all messaged I had pretty much reached my intellectual limit. It was all almost unconscious and subtle of course but bring put together with other children who had learning issues reinforced these things. Many if not most believe 'you can't get out what God didn't put' this view is very resilient despite advances in cognitive science.

There are a lot of stealth 'treasure hunt' Mums out there :) Just look at the tutoring that goes on for 11 plus.

:) at views on treasure hunts. Indigo, I will be really interested to see what Matthew Syed comes back with at the end of the week, some points raised along these lines.

I believe, as many know, it's possible to get smarter, I am living proof. I was bottom of the class in primary school, or close to it. I know that being viewed as a bit dim stayed with me, a bit like my hair colour, as I rose through the years. Human beings label and categorise, it's how we are wired. The tracking mentality in my school made it hard to progress beyond expectations. I believe if anyone had told me I could smash expectations with a different mindset I would have. My set, table etc all messaged I had pretty much reached my intellectual limit. It was all almost unconscious and subtle of course but bring put together with other children who had learning issues reinforced these things. Many if not most believe 'you can't get out what God didn't put' this view is very resilient despite advances in cognitive science.

There are a lot of stealth 'treasure hunt' Mums out there :) Just look at the tutoring that goes on for 11 plus.

I am sure it is possible to get smarter, but not necessarily by being stretched by somebody else as if you were a piece of elastic.

My dd gets smarter all the time because she takes initiatives and tries to find things out for herself. We have put far more time into trying to extend ds, but I can see little evidence that it is going anywhere, partly because he is probably less gifted, but mainly because he is not the kind of person to ever do anything for himself. His teachers work desperately hard to get him engaged, but they can't help noticing that the moment they take their eyes off him he stops working because he doesn't actually like working hard. He knows perfectly well what he would have to do to move up a set, he know it is doable and his teacher would be delighted, but he reckons that would mean he would be expected to work harder and he doesn't want that.

As far as ds is concerned educational games= mum and dad trying to turn me into someone I don't particularly want to be.

Agree with Indigo- I have been to parent evening for DS so many times where the teacher has said DS must read so much etc. I sit there feeling guilty because ds really didn't do any reading, he has dyslexic problems and really didn't like reading books much and we never did any extention work other than every day chatter and answering his questions. He is an abstract thinker which I really don't think you can teach. He doesn't work hard at all, he just absorbs facts and can put his own assessment on them.

DD is appararently capable of higher thinking in maths (whatever that may be) but when she was little she did ask for some workbooks and used to do one before she went to bed instead of reading, but other than that we have never done any extra work with her and no Kumen. She was always lightening fast with mental arithmatic without any practise. She thinks in maths ie we would be listening to the radio and they mentioned a year she would pipe up how many years ago it was.

You do need the spark in the first place.

My highly academic parents had 4 children. Two of them learnt Latin and Greek and German poetry and music and history and anything else they had offer. Guess which two? The ones who wanted to.

The eldest child, who had most educational conversations and most stretching and most earnestness expended on him was the one who profited least (though he has since done very well for himself in a totally different non-academic area of life). I think one reason us younger ones did better was because we were not subjected to quite as much earnestness: we had to ask for things and so valued them more.

Kumon is only a 'choice' if it can be afforded or is 'offered' by a parent. I am always a little suspicious of those that say their kids 'choose' to have tutoring.
My DS is in year 1 and is an inquisitive chatterbox. Not in with the hot house group but doing ok. I do wonder if he could be in the 'top' group if I was less lazy.
However, he is happy/we are broke and I am lazy... so no kumon or prime number games here!!

Cory - do you think your son is innately laid back or lazy? Or that he just isn't stimulated by that environment and he finds school a bit dull and pointless at the moment? Interesting point about the earnestness.

What surprises me is how many believe that a child with an 'average' 'IQ'/ability in maths for example would be unlikely or unable to get an A* in GCSE.

fwiw I do give my ds a few minutes (literally) of extra school type stuff some days because he is bright and he isn't learning much new maths at school. I don't think it's hothousing - if I don't do it he won't learn anything. 99% of the time after school he just chills and has fun or does a couple of activities HE chose. No workbooks though - too dull and too much like school work.

What surprises me is how many believe that a child with an 'average' 'IQ'/ability in maths for example would be unlikely or unable to get an A* in GCSE.

Cortina - You keep saying stuff like that. But do you have any stats to back it up? How many people believe that?

A lot of people believe that kids who work harder get better results. But not everyone wants their child to work so hard that they will get an A*.... Not everyone thinks doing extra work is a good thing - because not everyone cares about school marks.

I care very much about my kids. But I don't for a second believe that what they get in GCSE impacts on the things I care about - how happy they are and will be as adults.

I do believe all 3 of mine are capable of As. But that does not mean I want them to get them. I'd rather they learnt a lot of way more important stuff than how to ace exams....... If they choose to work hard and get As - great. If not, it's their life......Luckily there's way more to their life then GCSEs.....

I also think school thinks I tutor / extend. Not so. No treasure hunts, no writing shopping lists, radio2 on for school run. DS's favourite activity footie in the garden. He is yr2 youngest & bright at maths.

Am with Lawrie on Total Wipeout multiple viewings. DS will tell me who is going to get the best time

Wonder if am doing DS a disservice in not proactively extending but remember being bored at school at myself. Not a selective state school in sight round here so can't name anybody who uses Kumon.

If I had a very mathsy DC then I certainly wouldn't send them to Kumon. There is much more to maths than arithmetic, which is Kumon's focus at the expense of other mathematical processes (I worked for them, and quit as I hated their ethos)

I would much rather extend them in other ways, with projects and research and logical games which weren't just about arithmetic. I appreciate that I'm lucky to be able to do that though, as maths is my strong point so I don't need to outsource it.

Some may say their mathsy DC loves doing all the worksheets and racing through sums and times tables - well that's possibly true, I certainly loved it (as well as projects etc) - but IME if a DC is that enthusiastic, they won't need the discipline of daily worksheets - you can get worksheets online or workbooks in places like WHSmith and save yourself 40 odd quid a month.