Kumon - Motivating my son - Please help...

yummymummy79

I've just started tutoring a 9 year old girl in maths for an hour a week over the holidays and she seems OK with it at the moment, but any more than that and I could see that she would start resenting the time taken away from other stuff. Trying to keep it fun and reasonably casual is helping.

My son has just turned 7, and being a teacher I obv want him to do well academically. Saying that though, I wouldn't make him to anything as structured as Kumon at his age. Personally, I would work on the English by getting him to write a diary of the holidays (which my son is actually doing), and talking to him about it. We also chat about stuff when we are walking around, how to describe things around us (adjectives, adverbs etc). FOr maths, there are plenty of good websites with games on that could be played together, even just for 10 minutes here and there, it all helps and they don't feel like it's learning.

Anyway, that's just my two penneth, everyone is different and you have to do what you think is right.

rachbc

He's 6 !!!!!! - if you must do maths with him do something fun involving numbers. Or alternatively- find something you hate and get your husband to force you to spend time doing it everyday and see how you feel about it/ him/ yourself

lolseh

I wouldn't start the likes of that until a child is alot older. Probaly not until exam age otherwise you risk making them hate anything related to school. At 6 all my homework outside of school was reading a book with mum and dad!

KiKi

Regardless of the rights or wrongs of doing it...

All people (and that includes kids!) learn differently. They have different preferences for the way they take in information. They have different ways of processing information, and some are much, much harder / easier than others. If it's not working for him, then try something different. Preferably through a way that he enjoys.

If someone made you sit down and read a cookbook every night, but you're someone who prefers to just stand in the kitchen and have a go at making something, wouldn't you be miserable?

KiKi

kingfisherblue

My friend's children do Kumon every day, and they just accept it as they have been doing it for so long. I wouldn't consider it, though. I have three children (one is now an adult). The two younger children are very different. The oldest lad has complex needs, yet he loves to complete workbooks. He is 13 and has a reading age of 7. His maths is more like age 5. He loves getting workbooks and filling them in.

His younger brother, who is very bright and has just achieved level 4A and 5 in his SATs, doesn't like additional work - unless it is on the computer. He will happily play on maths games on the internet, but isn't interested in written work outside school (homework at secondary school might be a shock!).

My two learn in many other ways, as do most children. The youngest is mad about origami at the moment - great for angles and shapes in maths. Both have been through Beavers and Cubs, and are now in Scouts, and have learned so many things that may not be academic, but are educational.

Education should be fun. It sounds as though Kumon is not much fun for the OP's son, so personally I would give it up and concentrate on other ways to learn, such as Beavers, cooking, nature walks, reading books together, finding countriees in an atlas and on the globe (my two have always enjoyed this), and just spending time chatting.

mrcow

Maybe Kumon just isn't fun for him. Stop wasting your money and try some (free or cheap) alternatives.

There are loads of ways of encouraging maths skills in a fun and interactive way.

1. Snakes and ladders with two dice which you can use for adding and counting.
2. BBC Bitesize http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/numeracy/ (Don't just stick with KS1 - try KS2 and the English and Science topics)
3. Download Timez Attacks from Big Brainz - imo the best times tables tool on the net (plus it's free!) http://www.bigbrainz.com/
4. Play shops - with play money where you can buy stuff and get change
5. Play restaurants (with real money if you want) where he makes up a menu of real food and you can order it for your lunch (and he can add up the money and work out the change)
6. Maths games like the excellent Pop to the Shops or the brilliant Magic cauldron game
7. If he will do worksheets, you can make your own: http://www.mathworksheetwizard.com/
8. Buy him a watch and teach him how to tell the time.
9. Buy him a tape measure and get him to e.g find something in the room that is 4cm long.
10. Cook with him and get him to measure and weigh the ingredients in grams and work
11. Teach him halves and quarters/ thirds eighths etc by chopping up his toast or pizza etc. or play shops and have a 50% off sale so he has to work out the new prices and give change
12. Play counting games where you take turns in counting in 3s, 4s, 5s, 10s etc with alternate numbers
13. Buy a times table music CD http://www.amazon.co.uk/Times-Tables-Learn-Songs-Games/dp/1904903967/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312840536&sr=8-1

etc etc

I'm sure you can think of loads more stuff.


Edit; Once he's a bit older, games like Monopoly are great - especially when you have to start sorting out the Mortgage costs in your head. Get him to be the banker!

RuthnJasper

mrcow wrote: »

Maybe Kumon just isn't fun for him. Stop wasting your money and try some (free or cheap) alternatives.

There are loads of ways of encouraging maths skills in a fun and interactive way.

1. Snakes and ladders with two dice which you can use for adding and counting.
2. BBC Bitesize http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/numeracy/ (Don't just stick with KS1 - try KS2 and the English and Science topics)
3. Download Timez Attacks from Big Brainz - imo the best times tables tool on the net (plus it's free!) http://www.bigbrainz.com/
4. Play shops - with play money where you can buy stuff and get change
5. Play restaurants (with real money if you want) where he makes up a menu of real food and you can order it for your lunch (and he can add up the money and work out the change)
6. Maths games like the excellent Pop to the Shops or the brilliant Magic cauldron game
7. If he will do worksheets, you can make your own: http://www.mathworksheetwizard.com/
8. Buy him a watch and teach him how to tell the time.
9. Buy him a tape measure and get him to e.g find something in the room that is 4cm long.
10. Cook with him and get him to measure and weigh the ingredients in grams and work
11. Teach him halves and quarters/ thirds eighths etc by chopping up his toast or pizza etc. or play shops and have a 50% off sale so he has to work out the new prices and give change
12. Play counting games where you take turns in counting in 3s, 4s, 5s, 10s etc with alternate numbers
13. Buy a times table music CD http://www.amazon.co.uk/Times-Tables-Learn-Songs-Games/dp/1904903967/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312840536&sr=8-1

etc etc

I'm sure you can think of loads more stuff.


Edit; Once he's a bit older, games like Monopoly are great - especially when you have to start sorting out the Mortgage costs in your head. Get him to be the banker!

This is the sort of thing that I was going to suggest! I don't have children but my lovely little nephew is six. He loves bridges (for some reason!), so we count them together on car or train journeys! There are so many ways that toys and games can be used as an aid to learning for a young child, without a reluctant child feeling "forced" to do things or having to sit inside with books while all his friends are having fun outside. A good education IS important - but so are social skills.

One of my friends is a child-minder and she uses simple games to help the older children with basic pre-school skills. She once had parents (both of whom were British and domiciled here) who decided to move their son to a more formal establishment because "he should be starting to learn French from the age of 3".

mrcow

Another thing I taught my son was how to play Cribbage - it's great for maths not only in working out what your hand's worth but also in the pegging (plus it's a cool game to know how to play).

We also play chess a lot, which again is all about maths and problem solving.

He also loves kid's Sudoku books and helps me with the adult ones.

brook2jack

Both of my children did kumon maths. As a previous poster said it is only 10 minutes a day. We did it because I firmly believe that for them there are some basic mathematical principles that only become easily used and understood by practice. Like times tables, division etc. I also believe there is a great advantage in being easily able to do mental maths which again kumon helped with. modern teaching of maths doesn't really do this level of drill which really imprints the basics for life.

They both only did it for roughly a year because by then they had a firm grasp of the basics and were streets ahead of the rest of the class.

We had a set time for it, it was only 10 minutes and they got to choose rewards at kumon. They did no other tutoring other than music. But with both things the self discipline it taught them at an early age was invaluable. Not everything is fun and sometimes children have to learn even at an early age to persevere at something to reap benefits. They both kicked off or complained but that's quite normal, they just learnt it was over quicker if they just got on with it. The trick was timing, home from school via the playground, outdoor play , tea then kumon with promise of tv afterwards. The longer it took to get down to kumon the less tv.

kingfisherblue

Self discipline can be taught in other ways - guiding and scouting, for example. A lot cheaper, more fun, and the children learn many more skills.