Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1 for Spectrum

Never heard of spectrum books. Will be sure to take a look at them.

It seems like the general consensus is that I should do a few minutes of workbooks at home with my son and not necessarily sign him up for the center.

Yes. Your LO will get more out of you than anyone else. Nobody cares more.

+1 to what the PP said.

Tie it to a reward if you think your kid might push back on doing the worksheets. Try stickers/pencils after 10 pages or something. We had to do rewards in the beginning to get DD into the habit, but once it became part of her routine, she just did them automatically. I also think she liked the fact that she saw herself getting 'better'.

At this age, just do it yourself. Save yourself the commuting time. Take 10 minutes a day to do the workbook and spend the other 20 minutes reading to/having fun with your kid. It works out so much better that way for a 5 year old.

My children liked reading books more than worksheets. They would never do 2 pages of work a night for nights on end. There are plenty of early reader phonics books out there. We like the Sam books and would read one or two a week, not every night. This was enough to supplement without burning them out. 30% FARMS is an average amount for here, not a "not so great school". The one child I know who's behind in 1st gets pulled out 3 to 4 times a week for reading help, so I wouldn't be so worried about it.

PP thank you for the really helpful post. What level reading is your child in now? Do you plan on continuing? If you only could choose one would you choose math or reading for a five year old.

i think OP might find my input interesting. so we have enrolled our DD into Kumon. we started in Aug, one month before she turned 5.

we enrolled DD for both math and reading... about reading... our DD was reading since she was 3 1/2. simple bob books type reading... b4 Kumon her reading was very inconsistent. she would have a wave of great improvement followed by a wave of set backs. when we enrolled in kumon she was in a middle of a setback wave (stumbling on simple 4 letter words that had simple constant blends). She did not test well and they put her into level 6A. 6A really sucked. she was not interested at all. it was really simple it would take her 3 min to do 10 pages and she clearly did not like it. after two weeks or struggle, we talked to the kumon teacher/director and asked to be pushed up. 6A was a waist of $$ for us. so she was moved to 5A. At 5A she was tracing letters and reading simple words. it was still very simple but we stuck with it. she enjoyed it much more. she zoomed though it and quickly moved into 4A which had words with simple blends. as a parent i really like the worksheets. the worksheets methodically presented families of words that had the same blend. someone clearly put good effort in building these sheets. by the time DD was in 4A (1-2 months after starting) her ability to focus really improved and she was working on 10 pages for about 20 min every day. we started to see some improvement in reading. eventually she transitioned to 3A that had more complex blends (digraphs and vowel blends) this is where we saw our $$ go to work. the idea of grouping words that have the same blend really clicked for her. it really helped her spelling too. interestingly her reading regressed. we where puzzled by the reading regression till we realized that she was re-learning how to read. before she used to make a lot of guesses of what the longer words were. 80% of the time she would guess right but 20% of the time she was really off. so 80% of the time her reading was really fast bc it was a guess rather then a reading attempt. So now she was not guessing any more. she was thinking in terms of blends that were connected to each other. she started to read long words and get them right. this was a big thing for us. eventually her speed picked up too. so to sum up, in 5 months we went from her reading bob books set 2 (and sucking at it) to reading "I Can Read level 1" books. She consistently reads every night to us 1-3 books (and we read to her at least 20 min every day). her spelling improved too. When she spells she gets most of the silent "e" words she gets all simple blends and digraphs and she very frequently gets vowel blends. we were not thinking about spelling when we started kumon. we saw big improvement in math too. she is in 2A math now (adding numbers up to 20). she started at 4A(writing numbers). kumon gives parents these charts that show kids progress. our chart shows that in next 3 months she will be 2 grades ahead in math and reading.

as a side note... the biggest thing that came out of this kumon thing is that she can really focus now. she consistently sits and does one task for 30-50 min (coloring or logos or puzzles). she is in KG in Montessori school and her teachers are very happy. she became very ambitious (does more work then asked). basically kumon acted as a scaffolding. at home kumon pushed us to develop a system of how to approach work. she knows what to do if she is stuck and can't solve things. she knows how to ask for help, how to think her way out of complex(from her perspective) problems. she saw a need to develop time management skills. she prefers to do Kumon ASAP rather then leave it to the end... so lots of small interesting side effects that we did not anticipate.

going to kumon center also helps. she gets to see other kids same age working hard and that really helps ("do as your pier do" type thing...)

now the drawbacks. the biggest drawback is that it is $$. 120 per subject. and there are a bunch of fees when u start. plus you have to pay for the last month first. so it was like $450 to get her going. so there was a big sticker shock at the start.
another issue is that Kumon doesn't do other stuff like patterns. We signed up DD for ixl.com and that fixed that problem.

finally i am sure there are a lot of moms that think Kumon is wrong/cruel/drill&kill. i am not arguing that this is for every one. not looking for a fight here. I just wanted to share our experience with OP.

I would sign him up for the center as long as you aren't on a really tight budget. The price is I parable to what you would pay for any other twice a week class, around 125 a month. I sent my kids to a play based preschool so there was no required pre-academic work. I balanced it with Kumon the year before they went to kinder. The Kumon books are not the same as the center worksheets. Some of the books are similar but the center worksheets are a complete program. There is also the benefit that paying money motivates you and your child to make sure the work gets done.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1 for Spectrum

Never heard of spectrum books. Will be sure to take a look at them.

It seems like the general consensus is that I should do a few minutes of workbooks at home with my son and not necessarily sign him up for the center.

Yes. Your LO will get more out of you than anyone else. Nobody cares more.

Anonymous wrote:+1 for Spectrum

Never heard of spectrum books. Will be sure to take a look at them.

It seems like the general consensus is that I should do a few minutes of workbooks at home with my son and not necessarily sign him up for the center.

+1 for Spectrum

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree that you should do it yourself at this age. There will plenty of need for outside tutoring later!

You can buy the Kumon workbooks on Amazon and try ate fantastic. Do one or two pages a day, everyday at the same time. You might have to sit with your kid for some of them, but then he/she might start being able to do them on her own.

There some great other workbooks - Spectrum (I think)?

It'll help build your kid's confidence. And I agree with the OP. Don't leave it up to the school!

do the workbooks match the center's worksheets? or are at least similar?

OP here. We have bought all the age appropriate kumon books from barnes and nobles. Many books we have bought twice. I believe the centers have many more ate appropriate levels.

Anonymous wrote:Agree that you should do it yourself at this age. There will plenty of need for outside tutoring later!

You can buy the Kumon workbooks on Amazon and try ate fantastic. Do one or two pages a day, everyday at the same time. You might have to sit with your kid for some of them, but then he/she might start being able to do them on her own.

There some great other workbooks - Spectrum (I think)?

It'll help build your kid's confidence. And I agree with the OP. Don't leave it up to the school!

do the workbooks match the center's worksheets? or are at least similar?

Agree that you should do it yourself at this age. There will plenty of need for outside tutoring later!

You can buy the Kumon workbooks on Amazon and try ate fantastic. Do one or two pages a day, everyday at the same time. You might have to sit with your kid for some of them, but then he/she might start being able to do them on her own.

There some great other workbooks - Spectrum (I think)?

It'll help build your kid's confidence. And I agree with the OP. Don't leave it up to the school!

Anonymous wrote:No! Do it yourself.

I agree. Do this yourself.

No! Do it yourself.

Whether it is Kumon or just supplementing at home, it is a good idea. Don't rely on the school alone. Big mistake. K has become pre-K, and 1st has become K. In 1st, teachers are still very much focused on behavioral and discipline issues, whether it be not throwing things to keeping your hands to yoy self. Sad, but true. Plus, the class size will be an issue for a while so out yourself in the teacher's shoes. Discipline issues, 25+ kids no help, vastly different skill levels, minimal time for lunch, and a handful of misbehaving kids. If you are looking to academically challenge your child, then you should do Kumon or supplement at home. As for preparing him for school, there will be kids on 1st grade who don't know how to read or write so your LO will not be behind. Again, sad but true.

My son turns 5 next month. He is at the cusp of learning to read. I am considering enrolling DS in Kumon to build a strong foundation for elementary school. We also are zoned for a not great elementary school. Kumon would give me peace of mind that my child will be learning all his fundamentals in case he does not get everything from school. Zoned elementary has 30% ESOL/FARMS.

Do you think it is a good idea to supplement with Kumon?