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...

Don't want to subscribe at the moment, but will try to get hold of the article. Thanks, S. Would agree that parents can influence outcomes, something as simple as being a family who reads can make a huge positive difference. Listening to your children read, reading to them, reading yourself for pleasure, having a well stocked booked case etc.

My DD did Kumon for a while before we moved back to the UK. Given she was learning just the alphabet at school and I knew she was way off the UK level. I looked into how I could help her whilst I also had 4 year old and 1 year old. I didn't know about mumsnet and the depth of knowledge everyone shares. She did it for about 4 months and it really helped. It wasn't going to cover every part of the curriculum back here and it was very limited but I glad we did something rather than nothing. She was able to do some of it independently to which really helped us out. Is my DD any "brighter: for it. Absolutely not but it does mean it's been easier for her / us to transition to YR 2 level. I try to encourage learning at home. I will be totally honest. I think that "bright" does come a lot from the way that parents talk to their children and I know the way I explain just everyday things is pretty poor. I love being around teachers and other parents to learn some of this that comes naturally for others. Thankfully DH is good in this area so hopefully that helps. I also do find it hard to find the quiet time to speak to each child as we have 3. However, they love being around each other. The smiles and highs they experience together because we are fun with them are priceless. I sometimes feel I need to give them something for 10 mins to fill some of the gaps I am not able to give them because of our family dynamics. I am not as pushy with it as I was but then I know I'm getting better at judging what they really need and I also recognise I give my kids some things that other parents don't and before I just used to beat myself up because I felt limited. I haven't ruled out using it again for helping speed up mental maths (but I think I've found something else that takes up 3 mins each day and they might like it). Systems don't make people "brighter" but they are there and can be used.

The UK is a very competitive place. We are aware of that as adults consciously or unconsciously. Most of the time you need to be as good as you can be to get a good job that equals a good standard of living. This is passed down to our children and sometimes the extra push form parents comes from this. Other countries do not have this same level of competition for each and every job. Therefore, they seem to be more relaxed about kids hitting targets.

That's my lunchtime waffle over.

So you are saying the child in question dislikes these lessons and is being put off the subject by being forced to do it ?

There are two ways of looking at it, most children generally do not like school work but we force them to go to school anyway because we know it will benefit them in future.

Maybe it's the kumon lessons that have helped the child to stay at the top in the first place, so parents might want to keep that up.

You also mentioned that the child has siblings in grammar school, so perhaps this will help in preparation for that as well.

I'm rather concerned about whoever reported my previous post to Mumsnet Towers as "advertising". It was a link to a totally free website that provided drill type maths worksheets. I though that as people were discussing the pros and cons of Kumon and how some dcs liked to do worksheets at home, the link might have been useful to those who wanted to do these types of worksheets with their dcs for FREE. I have absolutely NO connection to the site - it is just one I find very useful.

I was genuinely trying to be helpful to others.

Sarah - that's rubbish! You post on here so often, and never advertise :(

But, thank you for all the free advice you have given me over the last year....

My early childhood was in Lithuania where they still don't start school till 7 and there are no afternoon lessons for children below 11, so I find the idea of making little children work even harder, despite the long hours they already do here, appalling.

But learning to read and write Lithuanian is almost as easy as Finnish. There they also don't start formal schooling till 7.

Seymour et al established in 2003 that English-speaking children take nearly three times longer to learn to read and write than the European average of one year or less. This explains why Anglophone children have to start their schooling earlier. But to make them work even harder seems a bit crazy.

But my background has left me advocating modernisation of English spelling (google Masha Bell if interested) which quite a few people deem totally insane.

Feel conversation has moved on a bit, but what channel are Crystal Maze reruns on? Would like to extend DS a bit.

I don't think you can compare the time taken on average to "learn to read and write" European languages. You can compare the average time to learn to read, but writing is quite another matter. English is quite hard to learn to read compared to many other European languages, but it is much easier to learn to write (barely any conjugation!).

Sarah, your link was no more an advert than mine ffs. What is that all about?

Bonsoir, you're right, and also I'd say Italian grammar for example is very complicated, just like French and it needs separate study for that reason. Every verb has a life of its own!!!!

I wish people would stop describing Kumon as maths. It isn't. It's arithmetic drills. You won't turn your child into a mathematician with Kumon, you'll get them fast at arithmetic. And arithmetic is seriously overrated by most primary school parents. When you get to degree level, it's not really an issue (although thinking 9+7 was 14 did delay me for a bit in one of my final exams).

Good post galois

I really think that boring your children silly with Kumon and it's endless repetitive work sheets will turn them off maths. I have noticed however that the more my children read from a wide variety of books and authors the smarter they became. There must be more interesting and varied maths study courses than Kumon.

Bonsoir, English is much harder to learn to write, as well as to read, than any other European language because several thousand words contain unpredictable letters, such as 'blue shoe flew through to you two too' - englishspellingproblems.blogspot.com/2010/11/english-spelling-rules.html - French is the second worst, but not nearly as bad as English.
A big cross-European study (Seymour et al) confirmed this in 2003.

The most used verbs are as irregular in English as in French and most other European languages: do, did, done; go, went, gone; hit, hit, hit... 170 English ones are like that.

Grammar is difficult only for foreigners, not native speakers, as they grow up with it. Learning to read and write English is harder for everyone.

OP I'm really struggling to understand why you care.

If parent and child are happy with the Kumon then where's the problem?

It wouldn't be my DC's cup of tea so I wouldn't do it, but I don't assume I have the last take on parenting and condemn it. I do find it odd that so many parents spend their time wittering about other perfectly loving and capable parents. There are thousands of children in the UK receiving a substandard education and little or no stimulation/enrichment at home. These are the children we should spend our energies on surely?

I don't see the problem.Iwouldn't use it-it seems to produce rigid thinking -but I really don't care what others do.

You certainly don't need researchers and statistics to tell you that the ones who get help can get better especially if the teacher requests it! I remember when I was at the primary school I could tell whose children's mothers had spoken to the teacher and had been told they need help. Because after a week or so they could answer questions and I actually felt very nice about it :) I always assumed that the parents did the extra work with their children, not a tutor at this age. The majority of the children will benefit from extra help but if you are top of the class why go for kumon or ...tutoring?? There is hardly any homework (I have been told by people who have studied here AND abroad) comparetively given at school in this country which according to my husband and other university friends made them struggle with studying when they were doing their A-Levels because they said they hadn't been used to having so much studying to do. Is that true for the rest of you?

I remember the Guardian once had 20 maths questions that someone has learnt if he has studied up to A-Level. I solved all of them while my husband only a handful or none as I can't remember. He could not remember how to solve them. He was always one of the brightest in his school while in my class (abroad) I was a good student but not bright!! We were given huge amounts of homework which consolidated a few things at least. Although I doubt that at secondary level in Britain they don't give much homework. Sure they do, don't they??

Now since here there is not all this homework at primary I am at least happy that as others said my children will have the chance to learn something additional, e.g. martial arts, painting, foreign languages, swimming or anything they enjoy!

The link again for anyone who is interested www.dadsworksheets.com/. (waiting to be struck by lightening by the mumsnet powers that be!) They are basically drill type sheets, but as people have been saying these can work for some children in some circumstances. The blog is interesting as a description of one dad's attempts to help his daughters with maths.

lightning even!

Sarah - those worksheets are almost identical to Kumon! And they're free :)

If you do want your child to do 10 mins arithmetic a day - there is no reason to pay £50 per month for worksheets......

I agree with Indigo! You can even make it up if it is simple addition and subtraction. Why pay when you have your parents to help you? And you can adjust it to the amount of work you think your child needs (if they do). You might think the school gives them more than enough, especially if they communicate well with the parents.

Thanks for the link sarahfreck.
I have just stopped Kumon maths for DD.
Although she has been doing English for 3 years and Maths for 1 - after talking to her school teacher, we came to the conclusion that she really just doesn't "get" numbers, not number bonds or subtraction or multiplication.
So the question was - why am I paying £50 a month for her to catch up to the others, when it is clearly making no difference!!
So I stopped it.
Kumon English on the other hand has really helped DD, and has given her a huge amount of confidence at school.