Kumon - Anyone ever used them??

[satc2bringiton]

DS1 is going into year 6 this Sept and is very behind, so were looking into getting him some extra help before he starts Secondary.

Have come across this website and they have a centre 10 mins away.

Just wondered if anyone had any experience of using them?

[LimaCharlie]

Not personally but a friend used them briefly - found them a bit unhelpful and instead paid for a tutor which was more targetted to her DC and the 1:1 more beneficial.

[willali]

We have used Kumon for both our children however they were both much younger than your DS. We used it to reinforce the basics but I would say at your DS's age and school stage a tutor (which we now use for our least numerate child!) is a far better option as it is very much more targeted at what they are doing at school. Kumon very much focuses on the basic 4 rules by way of constant and quite tedious repetition. It does not deal with shape, word problems, fractions (at least not until a quite advanced level) and geometry etc. all of which will be required by the school curriculum and later SATs etc

[JustAnother]

we did when DS was 5/6yo, but gave up after that. It is very repetitive, and DS was extremely bored. We continued with the discipline of doing work every day, but we now use www.beestar.org and similar sites

[454]

Hi

I am a Kumon Instructor and I have several students who start when they are are early learners and several when they are in Year 5 or year 6. Four months ago I had a student from Year 2 enrolled and started on level 2A and by September end she should be my Gold ASR recepient level C 100.

There are few others students who are year 7 and at secondary and they are working without repetitions and progressing quickly especially during the holiday period.

Gone are the days of boring repetitive worksheets - now it is the abiity as well as the academic ability which is nurtured.

So unless you try it out you wouldn't know it and do not deprive the chid from this opportunity, Good Luck

[upahill]

We used Kumon from DS being in year 5 until May this year. He is about to go into year 10.

We initially did it to give him a boost with his SATs coming up.

I have to say it worked for us although it is not a quick fix programme.

I know Kumon has a lot of critics but for us it was helpful.

[RoadArt]

If you are happy for your DS to study at home, have a look at Maths Whizz. They show you a wide spectrum of the curriculum and well worth a try

You do an initial assessment so that lessons are set based on ability and you start at the level of maths that the assessment believes you are at. It will then run a "study" programme which moves across lots of different lessons but there are also tutorials to practice each topic

[Hulababy]

Yes, DD went for he trial sessions and I was not impressed at all.

The people who worked directly with the children were students - high school/sixth form students. There was one senior person there who oversaw everything, but didn;t work direct with the children from what I gathered, Not qualified staff, defnot teachers.

Was expensive at £50 a month or so. You can buy Kumon workbooks online for a lot less - jsut do hese yourself at home instead.

Start the children at a VERY VERY low level.They started DD, aged 7y, on preschool work, basically adding up dots. She was working a amuch much higher level in school and at home. No wnder they get results- they strt so low it would be impossible for children not to progress quickly through their levels.

It is very repetitive - death by worksheet style.

It teaches children to answer questions as quickly as possble with no work on understanding what they are doing or why.

We didn't sign up.

[Hulababy]

It was last year we tried it out BTW. Obviously different centres may work diffeerently. This was our loal experience.

[LadyBlaBlah]

DSs do it. Have done since February. It seems to work based on the old saying "practice makes perfect"

It will very probably improve your child's maths. It would be hard not to. I don't have the self discipline to do it myself. I get told off if I don't do it with them so I do it.

[Swarski]

My DS started this in June, to try to improve his focus and concentration. It is hard work to get them sat down at the same time each day and to crack on with it, but has worked for us with his teacher seeing a definite improvement in his concentration levels in school.