Kumon...is it worth the money?

[FollowingAmirage]

I am sure this was asked before but any thoughts on Kumon?

My son is 24.
He went to kumon from the age if 10 to 14.
I know everyone is not a fan but it really helped him a lot. He liked the tutor who was a kind elderly man and that was a bug help.
In my opinion it made a huge difference in understanding maths and his grades dud improve.
He needs to do a lot if maths in his head fit his job and he finds it easy..

Sorry about my typos. My eyes fade at this time of night!

Kumon is controversial on here. Personally I think it has its place and I'm not against it but I'd sooner put the money into a good after school grind. Would be more tailored to the child's needs and they can work through any misunderstandings.

in my opinion, you can probably buy some systematic math.practice books and achieve the same results. Kumon doesn't train ur thinking skills. it only improves ur results by lots of repeated practices, which is very boring Imo

in my opinion, you can probably buy some systematic math.practice books and achieve the same results
I would agree with that but there was no way i could get Ds1 to do this at home. It became a battle ground thinking he was being punished with more work in top of his home work However he accepted going to Kumon with no arguments or fights.
I agree it was repative and again that worked fir him. Once he was in year 9 and left he was more confident with his maths and was able to tackle more complicated formulas on.

Two of my three children did kumon. Hadn’t heard of it when my eldest was young

One started at about 6 the other about 8. We could only stick with it up to about 10 as regular homework and after school activities clashed. However, their basics were fabulous and to this date (early 20’s) their mental maths are amazing

yes, I agree with the above that Kumon will improve the mental maths signigicantly, that's actually the way Chinese are taught in school: lots of practices. Unfortunately UK school normally only do mimimal practice, which Kumon can actually supplement

Thank you all for the replies. They are overall encouraging!

I have tried to buy books/search the net for worksheets etc. But often failed to keep it up with 3 boys and a full time job. Hence the question about kumon: a gradual programme for the whole week sounds good. I might give this a try!

Loved Kumon when I was younger! Also went on and got an A in maths in GCSEs with no studying (I hated studying). And an A level grade.
As long as you can afford it, can't hurt to try!

op, people recommend Singapore maths to do math practice. Maybe u can give it a try. As for Kumon, u can't rely on the tutor , u have to push them to do the practice everyday, which can be hard sometimes. However, if u are ok with the charge, maybe give it a trial

I highly rate Kumon toys and workbooks. As a go to study centre, no, I don't think it's worth it, unless your child is really struggling and need repetition to improve mental maths.

As a matter of fact, my son does need some repetition to improve mental math! 😅

Looking up Singapore math too now...thanks @midnightOK. Is that something you tried yourself? Keen to hear more about this...any experiences?

If you want repetition, I would rather recommend IXL. Like kumon, it isn't the teaching website, rather practice by repetition similar to Kumon strategy. But it's cheaper, you have access to reception - yr13 material, and you don't need to mark them yourself as a parent.

I was told not to bother when I asked a mathematician friend. Good way to kill the joy of maths. There are much cheaper ways of doing repetition too - as @past points out.

I was told not to bother when I asked a mathematician friend
I'm glad we did bother.
It worked out really well for ds.
He went from hating maths and refusing to do homework yo confidently working stuff out in his head. He uses maths everyday as his job as an engineer.

Totally depends on the child, not Kumon but one of my DS’ had private maths tuition, twice a week & it really helped him, he passed his higher paper maths GCSE, DS2, same tutor, made no difference whatsoever.

I did it and it made everything click for me, strongly recommend it if child just doesn't get maths.

My kids (6 & 10) really liked the Prodigy Maths website during lockdown. They wanted me to subscribe to the paid version so they could get more in-world stuff like better armour and pets, but I refused!

It absolutely didn't work for my son and was a huge waste of money and energy. I can imagine that some children find it helpful but I really regret persisting with it.

"I'm glad we did bother.
It worked out really well for ds.
He went from hating maths and refusing to do homework yo confidently working stuff out in his head. He uses maths everyday as his job as an engineer."

Maybe it helped his confidence more than his maths. Kumon did not make him an engineer certainly!

"I'm glad we did bother.
It worked out really well for ds.
He went from hating maths and refusing to do homework yo confidently working stuff out in his head. He uses maths everyday as his job as an engineer."

Maybe it helped his confidence more than his maths. Kumon did not make him an engineer certainly!
planogirl. I never said Kumom make him an engineer anywhere in my post. I said that he uses maths in his job everyday as an engineer. Something that I wouldn't have believed at the time he was really struggling with maths
I agree that Kumom gave him confidence and that was a good thing. At school and in the home maths was a battlefield.
For DS I think it was a combination of things. The repetition certainly helped things stick, in a similar way that I learned times table in my head at school he learned patterns off by heart. The atmosphere at class was completely different to school with only a couple of children in class in the early stages.
Kumom may not be very everyone but for us it worked and I am very pleased with the results he got in school. He changed from failing and getting poor grades and getting frustrated and angry to succeeding. I never would have thought he would have got an A in maths in his GCSE's and was so pleased for him when he did.
If there was one thing that convinced me it helped his mental maths was when he was about 11 or 12 and he was with 6 kids from his youth club and they were working out an every day maths problem, I can't remember what it was , probably cutting the number of pizzas up fairly or something and DS was able to work it out a lot quicker no cxurtely than the others and explained how he did it. Ok nothing life changing but it should how he could work out formulas and divisions in his head

@FollowingAmirage

Looking up Singapore math too now...thanks *@midnightOK*. Is that something you tried yourself? Keen to hear more about this...any experiences?

sorry for the late reply. I didn't follow this thread. I have Singapore math matetials with me, but haven't started using them. Singapore math obviously works out cheaper than Kumon and personally I think singapore math style is much closer to British math style. If ur aim is for 11+ test eventually, Kumon helps with the basic mathematics calculation, but not the problem solving skill.

How does Kumon make you better at metal maths? DO they teach you a special approach to work things out? I know there is a lot of sheets that kids need to do but do they teach you how to work out 56+88 for example? do they teach the concepts and you go and practice again and again at home?

@midnightOK how does kumon help with the 11+? Is it just repetition - doing it again and again so the child remembers it?