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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Kumon is stupid. Your kid can be super awesome at math without Kumon.[/quote]

+1[/quote]

That is the dumbest comment ever. You're shaming people for getting academic help. [/quote]

“Academic help?” People make their kids do Kumon because they think it’s the key to bring the top of the class. If your kid actually needs help to stay on grade level, you need a tutor. Doing piles of Kumon worksheets isn’t teaching math it’s practicing math.[/quote]

To be fair, a lot of students do improve their conceptual understanding with lots of rote practice, because that's what their school was missing, and for some brains it takes a million practice problems for it to click. But you don't need a paid service for that, I agree. [/quote]

Which students learn concepts from rote practice?
Learning concepts comes from non-rote practice, making connections between different ideas.

Rote practice miseducates by making the student think one specific computation is the "real" math. Then they grow up and throw fits over schools teaching their kids mathematical concepts  the parents don't understand. [/quote]

To put in simple terms, rote practice exercises the brain and more brain exercise equals better performance in all areas. To give an example, when my then 5 year old was learning to tell analog time, she struggled with the concept of the hour hand being closer to the nearest whole hour. So we gave her lots of practice worksheets[i] in addition to [/i]working with her on concepts. One day she comes up to me excited because she discovered that the minute hand moves 60 times faster than the hour hand. She also discovered that besides 6:00 there were other times during the day when the hour and minute hands were 180 degrees apart. Without the rote practice, those insights would have come much later. What Kumon does can help, but it's only part of what a math learner needs, and it certainly isn't worth what people are paying for it.[/quote]

If you have kids at a school were memorizing math facts is never covered then it absolutely is worth the money. People keep posting about AOPS, and yes it is great but you can't do AOPS algebra effectively if you don't have math facts memorized. The program is intended to be used WITHOUT a calculator. My son used AOPS algebra before there were in person classes by self-studying from the algebra book. That is how it was originally intended to be used. You have to be able to quickly and effortlessly recognize and reduce fractions like 80/560. If you don't have math facts memorized it would take you a ridiculously long time to solve problems. Additionally, the explanations assume you know math facts. Studying two to three years at Kumon from 1-3 grades was well worth the money for our kids. Homework and classwork is done really quickly when you are in a class with kids who don't instantaneously know their math facts and you do. My kids were always the first to finish. [/quote]

Very true.  I worked in a top elementary school and teachers would tell students in 3rd and 4th grade to memorize math facts, specifically the times table, but they would not plan time during math for students to practice.  It was expected that students would memorize the facts at home.  In this school a lot of parents made sure this happened but for the students whose parents didn't teach it or pay someone else to teach it to their child they were at a definite disadvantage.[/quote]

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