Kumon

[sesame]

hi,
i'm wondering to send my kid to KUMON or not. Do you send your kids to this center? Is it useful? I heard some mix reviews about this. care to share experience?

[tamarind]

sesame,
You should buy the Kumon workbooks from Popular to try out first. For the maths workbook, they make the child do the same thing over and over again. For example
1+1=
2+1=
3+1=
4+1=
5+1=
...

Kumon believes that practice make perfect. A child who did too many pages of Kumon maths worksheet, will end up memorizing the sums, instead of working them out. The child may not fully understand what is addition.

Checkout this website. You can find the test papers from the top primary schools in Singapore. You will see that Kumon is very different from these test papers.

http://test-paper.info/


For example, here's a P1 test question from Nanyang primary school.

There were 51 passengers in a bus. Some passengers alighted at the first bus stop. How many passengers alighted at the first bus stop if 39 passengers were left in the bus ?


Kumon definitely cannot prepare a child for a question like this ! I mean the child must first read and understand the question, and then figure out that he needs to do 51 - 39. Kumon teaches the calculation part, but not the reading and understanding which are most important.

[princesscarebear]

Kumon teaches a child the basics and concepts of a subject. It does not teach the school syllabus.
A child can excel in kumon but may not fare well in our education system.
I feel that kumon is very good for pre schoolers.
When a child enters Pri 1 he is forced into a system which requires him to follow rigidly the school syllabus, he needs to focus on the technique of scoring well.
I felt that for my kids, once they entered primary school, they could not afford the time for kumon.

[sesame]

tamarind n princesscarebear,

ya, that is what i heard. Guess Kumon only helps the children to count faster due to practising. I checked the book, yah, it's a lot of repetition for one subject only.
thanks

[pinkrabu]

actually kumon is good for upper primary and secondary school children as well. having completed whole of the maths kumon syllabus, as well as taught at kumon, the idea of kumon is that, you practice as much as possible those that you made errors in, and you do them in a quicker time as you do.

the thing about singaporean children and parents are that, they just want everything to be over and done with, with errors or not. do keep in mind this is a japanese teaching method, they stress on perfection AND quickness. your kid will be trained to be careful in his/her work.

don't give up on kumon just yet. lastly, it doesn't just offer maths, there's chinese and english worksheets as well. i feel the english ones are good because the kids get to learn words they don't in school.

[lisayvonne]

Hi there! I think Kumon is ok at the beginning. My child has been using Kumon for a while. It helped my child in math calculation skills. But over time, the benefit is no longer that visible and we feel more pressure on its monthly bills. Then we accepted the advice from our neighbor, and started to do the worksheets on Beestar (www.beestar.org). To my surprise, she loves the 10 quick questions very much and it really helps kids thinking. Plus, I also don’t have to drive her to kumon. Maybe you also can have a try.
Lisa

[Sugarplum]

Kumon worksheet are very good.
Method of teaching is fine too i guess.

However I do not think they are employing quality teachers. No specific time slot given to you, you can go at any time. Any teacher who is free will teach you...These are things that I don't like.

[HeartYouLove]

Kumon style of teaching is great but of course if you will enrol your kids there don't expect them to be good in the school activities. Just think that this will be an additional skills for them which they can use in the future events. If ever there will be a quiz bee for mathematics. This will also enhance their speed on thinking and analysing mathematical problems. Especially if the child is not so good in mathematics this will be a helpful enhancer for them before facing mathematical problems in school.

[TanLin]

Check this out... something different from Kumon...

www.facebook.com/bricks4kidzsingapore

=) enjoy!

[samantha13]

Hiya mummies and daddies, a new toddler and nursery programme is coming to Thomson! We offer 3 hours toddler and nursery programmes for your lil' ones and we assure you that they will go homes with smiles on their faces after school.

Our curriculum programme boasts of quality fun hands-on activities in a cosy home-like environment. They will feel right at home and learning will be a natural thing in our school.

Besides our daily preschool programme, we have an exciting lineup of enrichment programmes for your kids too. Our Reading Enrichment and Primary School Preparatory Programme will help your child learn to read and not only be prepared for Primary School but for life.

Like our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/GivingTre3/. Email your interest to [email protected] right now!

[AnastasiaAng]

Kumon is not bad but a bit expensive.

And they must go through a test for your children to determine which level they are at.