To Kumon or not to Kumon. That is the question.

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DD is starting school in September. Below are the Pros and Cons I have been debating recently.

1. She is bright, so should be okay without extra help in school
2. It is too early to put her through this
3. Kumon is expensive and time consuming.

The Pros

1. It may give her that bit of extra confidence at school
2. Earlier is better as then she can grow with that system
3. Its not so expensive as to be prohibitive.

I really cant decide either way. Please someone help?

It could however be like my clutch of music certificates- all embossed with distinction-and no understanding at all!

And I loved my theory of music-who wouldn't when you can get 100% each time.

Sorry- I keep posting too soon-have now finished!

I wasn't having a go at seeker's children. I was having a go at seeker - subtle difference.

I originally decided to just offer my opinion on kumon and then to stay out of it. I've been on enough of these threads to know that the strength of conviction here is such that things will invariably turn into a bun fight. At the end of the day kumon has helped my state primary DS to rise to the top of his predominantly prep school background maths class so do I really care if others have a negative opinion? Not really. Consequently I don't feel a need to convince others but I couldn't hold back when seeker advised the OP not to bother because a DC with ability doesn't need help.

There are lots of MNetters that I don't agree with but at least they can say -in ya face Poosh. My kids are thriving Poosh, so what I have to say is equally valid.

But this isn't what seeker is saying. What she is saying is that kumon is rubbish and that the OP should forget about it. If she could finish that story with how she rejected kumon and that her DS went on to pass the 11+ then it would be advice worth taking. As it is, her advice is ill conceived.

However I accept that the comment was a bit harsh and that the same point could have been made without a between-the-eyes shot and for that alone I apologize.

I fail to see what the 11+ has to do with it!

I wasn't having a go at seeker's children. I was having a go at seeker - subtle difference

I'm not sure anyone agrees with that - your spite was quite shocking. And personal attacks are not allowed on MN.

No. I agree. Comment from poosh is not acceptable. I am trying to highlight the tone that was taken with iyn when she made her child cry to sit down and do something.

It was making out that if your DC doesn't pass an exam you are somehow a useless parent and your advice isn't valuable. The subtext is that 'if seeker had got it right her DS would have passed'.
This is where you get the competitive mummies from-as in 'my DC is on a higher reading band and therefore I am the better parent'! Culminating with 'my DC is at Oxford and therefore I have fantastic parenting skills'!!!
Someone whose DC is deemed to have 'failed' may have very relevant advice.

@OP - the problem isn't with kumon. It's with the parents that use it.

It's like the parent that went on about how her DC was struggling in maths in Year 10 because kumon hadn't given the DC a proper understanding. The DC was in Year 10 and was struggling and of course this was an example of the failings of kumon and had nothing to do with the school she was in.

Then there are the parents who have an either or approach . You either get the DC to study 20min a day OR you get your children to bake, go to museums and do kids stuff. Why does it have to be either or? Why not both? DS did kumon and still did football, swimming and music stuff.

We chose kumon because we didn't have the time to trawl the Internet for a constant source of free material. Buying work books wasn't an option either. Do you know how many books you need to buy in order to generate enough material for daily homework sessions?

If you don't think kumon is for you then that's fine. As I said above, its not for everyone. There have been threads on alternatives to kumon. Something called Lip Mc???? has been mentioned. I suggest that you look at your DC's abilities and what your aspirations are for your DC and take it from there.

Although it may seem like it, there is a large contingent of pushy parents here. It's just that the let children be children brigade is a bit more vocal. So don't let anyone convince you that you are a bad parent just because you have academic aspirations for your DC.

Take it from a parent that has been there and bought the T Shirt, children can be children and still be pushed academically, if not with kumon then with something else that works for your dc.

exotic - if seeker had said that her DC failed because she went with kumon, wasted a lot of money and it didn't work for her DS then she would be perfectly within her rights to tell the OP and others to stay away from kumon

But that isn't what she is saying.

She dismissed the kumon representative. She went on about how it preyed on parents with insecurities. She then went on about how children with ability don't really need help.

If the advice came from someone like Yellowtip then, considering she has a bunch of thriving kids, I would think that it was valid advice even though I didn't agree.

I just think that if you are to give parenting advice it should be along the times of - this is what I did wrong so learn from my mistakes OR look at my success story and this is my advice.

I am sure/hope Seeker has 'thriving kids' Pooshtun. I take thriving to be happy, healthy and well rounded individuals. You seem to have a narrower view.

This thread has turned quite nasty.

I think kumon is fantastic. i wish my d was learning her times tables and basic arithmetic at school but she isn't so kumon is helping her get the basics building blocks that you need to really study maths or science.

PooshTun Mon 18-Jun-12 09:13:41
@OP - the problem isn't with kumon. It's with the parents that use it.

You continue to provide us with a perfect demonstration of this point, Pooshtun.

"Sunflower - You've obviously haven't read seeker's posts in other threads about how unhappy her DS is and how others have made him feel a failure and how the secondary school is an inferior product. "

That is a lie. I have never said anything of the sort.

Moving back to the OP's point...

mrz said further up: "Yes the kids we get in school who have done Kumon require extensive support to get them to expected maths levels iyatoda"

That must be a very particular experience, then, because while I can believe that some children who do Kumon require extensive support, it hasn't been the experience of the children who do Kumon (for maths) at my sons' primary school. In fact, most of the ones I know are highly achieving, in the extension groups for maths, gaining places at highly selective secondary schools and being chosen for out of school enrichment classes.

Kumon is expensive and boring, but it is very good at reinforcing one quite narrow thing - arithmetic. If your child is conceptually strong at maths, but struggles with fact recall, Kumon is one way to help. It is not the only way and it might not be good value for money, but it isn't without value. I certainly didn't have the time or energy to source endless daily worksheets, though I beleive there are sites now that generate them cheaply.

I wouldn't do it with a preschooler though. If you want to get them used to sitting down and doing bits of work, you could buy various workbooks and get them to fill in a page a day - you can even time it if you want to replicate that full on Kumon experience!

Just to answer the OP and ignore the bunfight- I have a pretty normal 4yo who sounds like yours- happy, bright, inquisitive, loves learning. There is NO WAY I would put her in Kumon, or any other kind of 'extra learning' programme. The EYFS curriculum is great and in my opinion has got it completely right- at this age they should be learning through play.

I am preparing her for school in Sept by making sure she can eat nicely, use the toilet on her own, put her clothes on herself, take turns etc- those are the skills essential for starting reception imo. That and a love of learning because as far as she is concerned it is fun and not forced.

So OP you are not prepared to work with your child making sure she can do Maths with counters, and understand the physical reality of Maths. You want her to be able to work with abstract numbers, so she can become a Scientist or Engineer if she wants?

Well as a scientist I hate to tell you that unless she has a good grasp of what lies behind calculations she will not succeed in those fields.
For example for my doctorate I had to take expressions of how Chemical reactions took place and translate these into very complex computer code. I could only do this because I understood what lay behind simple Maths.

I would say that the more time children get to manipulate objects, and to discover Maths for themselves the better, especially if they want to become Scientists nd Engineers.
I also suspect that Scientists and Engineers from China and India have also spent a lot of time being creative with number. A Chinese abacus is a fabulous tool for exploring numbers.

(However even Kumon does in it's earliest worksheets, try to express numbers in more concrete ways.)

quick - IMO 4 yrs old is a bit too soon to start a DC on something like Kumon. But then, people told me the same when I started DS at 5.5 yrs old :)

Yeah, right. Set over the gunfight which you started, and fail to retract the lies you told about me.

I'm sorry, everyone. But she can say what she likes about me. But I will NOT allow her to lie about my child.

I haven't read the thread in its entirety - but to answer the OP, I wouldn't think that a bright four year old should be doing extra stuff (unless you are hothousing for some highly selective London prep - and that's a WHOLE other thread ). There is plenty of time if you feel you need to supplement their learning.

My two elder children (Yr 2 and Y3) do Kip McGrath tutoring which I think is fantastic. I don't really know much about Kumon other than it is a rote system, and a teacher friend of mine advised against it because it can cause confusion as maths is taught differently in school. I do however have friends who rave about it, but we went down the Kip route, and my Y3 son has been doing 11+ level maths for the past 6 months. He won a scholarship (at 7) to a very selective prep (which we turned down for various reasons) but Kip extends him and challenges him - and he loves it, and his teachers support us giving him extension work over and above what they do as it's obviously something he's got a talent for. It's tailored to each child and for my daughter, who is more literary, it has been invaluable in giving her confidence in her maths.

I think you will find that many people have reported your disgusting behaviour, PooshTun - personal attacks are not allowed on MN.

Especially about posters' children. How low can you go?

panicmode thanks for that. I'll look up kip McGrath.

Not only nasty behaviour but also total irrelevant. Think it's time to leave mn.