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Kumon school experience
Mon, 20 Mar 2006 22:13:48 GMT misc.kids
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Ignoramus31542...
Stephanie...
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Sorry you have written communication issues. :)
Sue...
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We have a 4.5 year old whom we try to get a little bit educated. So we
enrolled him into a "Kumon" to study English and math. After about 6 months of it, I ended up being basically shocked at the math program and pulled him out of it. This article sumarizes my experiences and I would like to invite some comments. None of what I am going to say below should be extrapolated to their English program, which I find to be quite sensible. Just a little note about myself, I have a tiny bit of math background tutors etc. I wanted my son to grow up with healthy interest in mathematics, although I would settle for healthy interest in at least something. |
Ignoramus31542...
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endless worksheets of similar practice examples, none of which is
really connected to another in a way that is mathematically meaningful. For many months, he has been practicing addition, doing the same stuff over and over, "progressing" from adding 2 and 3 to asdding 4 and 5, etc. The in class sessions do not have much teaching, they mostly check his skills acquired in homework (by asking him to do the same endless additions), and give him new assignments. I found that Kumon was accomplishing the opposite to our original intention of developing interest in math. My son became bored and resentful of the meaningless and repetitive drudgery. I also think that it was not even effective at getting him to perform arithmetic operations quickly in his mind. This sort of stuff may be possibly useful for a failing 8 year old student with strong willed parents, but it is unsuitable for a younger child who mostly needs to have math thinking and interests developed. So... For now, we are going to a private Russian tutor and I give him homework assignments myself. I try to mix repetition with variety of assignments (ie, there is arithmetic and a little trivial geometry in every assignment and old stuff repeats, bit in slightly new ways). He actually likes this tutor and enjoys going there. I certainly would not be recommending Kumon's math program to my friends. I would like to know if your experiences are different. |