<p>My youngest child, a 5th grade girl, still doesn’t have math facts memorized or any math sense. Her math instruction at school has been terrible! I want to start her at Kumon or Sylvan. Any experience with either? Any recommendations？ I’ve got my college kids and high school kids settled at the moment so I can think of the youngest ones.</p>
<p>Ask her math teacher if they can recommend a private math tutor.
You will get better results if she get one to one tutoring.</p>
<p>I used to work at Kumon and personally, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I noticed that the kids are often left to fend for themselves because there are so few oppurtunities to recieve help. The people who grade papers are usually high school students and we are not allowed to assist the students in any way. For some students, the pressure to get 100% on their homework and classwork is so strong that they resort to cheating. I find this to be extremely counterproductive to the actual “learning” that is supposed to take place.</p>
<p>We had good experience at Kumon, but the owner was a retired teacher who adapted the materials for her.
I didnt like Sylvan as it seemed more " corporate".
However, I think it would depend on the franchisees in your area.
We did also hire a private tutor, but she was awful & was really a tutor for kids who wanted to push ahead and who learned easily as she didn’t know anything about learning differences ( despite claims to contrary), and even made disparaging remarks about our daughter to us, while our daughter was present.
:p</p>
<p>Sylvans a mad waste of money and is way to overpriced go to mathnisium or kumon</p>
<p>I’m a high school senior who interviewed at Kumon for a position as a tutor/assistant/paper grader a few weeks ago. If you sent your child to Kumon, she would be helped 90% of the time not by a professional, but by someone like me. The Kumon system is its own curriculum and it’s designed for students trying to get ahead. I declined to accept the position because the environment was horrible. I was told not to teach the students anything, just to give them their papers and if they were having trouble, give them another sheet. I was literally told not to waste my time teaching and reteaching because kids wouldn’t listen to me, and because we needed to get kids in and out as quickly as possible. Kids are just given their work and expected to finish it on their own. It’s an accelerated curriculum for gifted students (or for students whose parents wish they were gifted). I’m sure a private tutor would be much more expensive, but anything’s better than paying for people to berate your kids at Kumon. That being said, your branch might be different, but the curriculum is the same.
You shouldn’t have to pay for a quality 5th grade level math education. If it’s a curriculum problem, reconsider where your daughter goes to school. If it’s just a matter of one on one attention though, ask at the local high school for tutors. This option isn’t for everyone and it’s by no means professional, but I volunteer at my old elementary school and it’s great for kids who just need extra practice. (Not to mention it’s the same instruction you’d be paying for at Kumon.)
Good luck!</p>
<p>Have you considered free online resources like Khan Academy?</p>
<p>Your best bet is to hire a private tutor. They can assess exactly what your child’s strengths and weaknesses are, and can address those issues using a variety of methods to match your child’s learning style. The best tutors I know (and have used) are teachers looking for extra money, retired teachers, and former teachers who are now tutoring full time. Ask your child’s teacher if he can recommend anyone. Ask at the front office. Ask neighbors who have older kids. Our neighborhood has a facebook group where people ask for recommendations for tutors, music instruction, art lessons, etc.</p>
<p>Find a good private tutor. Your child will get individual instruction starting at the level she is at…and moving forward. And it will cost you less than Sylvan or Kumon.</p>
<p>Have you tried any of the games available to teach basic math facts? When my kids were young they enjoyed some of the computer based math games. It didn’t seem as much like work to them as pencil-and-paper practice. A tutor could work with higher level concepts while also assigning daily math facts game time.</p>
<p>We’re trying Khan Academy but I don’t think there is enough basic facts practice. I’d be open to any recommended Aps but Nook tablet compatible would be helpful.</p>
<p>For the math facts, you can make old fashioned flash cards. For math sense a tutor is your best bet.</p>
<p>What mathmom said.</p>
<p>My kids did Kumon for two years during elementary school and improved tremendously. My daughter was never too good in Math and after that she gain a solid foundation and was able to progress on her own to more advanced classes. Today my daughter is in 12th grade doing Cal 2 and my son is in college majoring in Engineering. Kumon is not about learning but about practicing Math everyday the same way a musician practice its instrument. Kumon requires a lot of discipline and not all kids like it. Do what works better for you and your kid.</p>
<p>My son attended Sylvan for almost two years in middle school after it became obvious he was missing some basic skills from elementary school. It did wonders for him. They tested him, found where he was lacking, and worked to get him up to speed and to get his confidence up. At first it was reteaching him past material, and then he would go and ask questions/do his homework/go over current material. I think a lot of his success was that he wanted to do it. It was a lot of time for him, but I believe he learned more than math skills… He learned hard work pays off! He had a solid B+ in Algebra this year, and no longer considers himself “bad at math.”</p>
<p>Another fan of flashcards. I have been tutoring 3rd-8th grade math for about 5 years–with all levels of students. Before you spend $ on a tutor, look at some math websites. There are plenty that have free worksheets, flashcards, games, etc. Others (like IXL) charge a small (compared to tutoring) monthly/yearly membership fee, and you can get every curriculum topic by grade level. Or you could get a good old fashioned math textbook (like Saxon 54) and go through the lessons with her.
The main problem I notice is that students are not spending enough time on math. More time, more work, more practice is all they need. Kids (and some parents, too) are often unrealistic about the amount of work it takes to memorize the facts. Kids will put a lot of time into practicing a sport, but then they say practicing math for half and hour is “too hard!” It does take self discipline. </p>
<p>If you personally don’t have time to do drills/flash cards/worksheets, etc.,with your kid --or your kid won’t respond well to your help (kid whines, makes excuses to parent), then you could hire a high school student to do some drills and worksheets with her . See if that helps–before you hire a more expensive tutor. There has to be consistent daily practice. ( If a kid has one two-hour session a week, that won’t help as much as six 20min daily sessions.)</p>
<p>I agree with Atomom that schools don’t spend the time drilling kids that they used to. My youngest was moving on to long division before I even knew they had touched on multiplication- they did it that quickly. </p>
<p>I tried working with my son on math facts but it was really difficult to engage him. We did one summer with Kumon focusing on math facts and it made a huge difference for him. As a sixth grader, just this week he told me that Kumon really made a difference for him in terms of facts recall. He just knows them instantly, 100 percent of the time. That being said, I completely agree that Kumon is not useful for TEACHING. It was wonderful for drilling.</p>
<p>My boys also did Mathnasium for a time, just to shore them up, and I liked that program because it DID involve both mastery and teaching. They also liked that there was no work at home (as there is with Kumon.) They went to the center, put in their time, and were done.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids had a math delay though. I’m not sure if either of those options would be good for a true math delay.</p>
<p>Back when I was teaching third grade, my classroom had a record album (boy does THAT date me!) of math facts set to song. I played the “6’s” several times every day when we were learning the “6’s” facts, and I taught every trick I knew to help kids recall and memorize those facts. It didn’t take up much classrooom time. I’d play a facts song while the kids were lining up for recess, or lining up to go to P.E. They sang along if they wanted to. </p>
<p>Short, frequent, painless practice. Every kid left third grade knowing his multiplication facts, and I had many very low achieving kids.</p>
<p>It doesn’t need to be a horrible task. Think how easily your kids memorize lyrics to songs. There are CDs out there that set facts to music. Play them in the background while your child gets dressed. Play them in the car, not all the time, but often. Sing along with the music. Make it fun.</p>
<p>Putting in a word for Singapore Math. It presents fewer topics, can be slow paced, or accelerated on an individual basis.</p>
<p>I think it very much depends on the franchisee. We used Kumon with our older son. We were in a small town and the owner had a Ph.D. in science and her husband was a prof at the local university. He was not having difficulty understanding, but he had a horrible teacher who did not do will with little boys. By the time we realized something was amiss he was behind. He was a daydreamer who only worked when he felt like it, but since he wasn’t a troublemaker, the teacher ignore him. IMHO, a teacher should realize when the same student does a timed math test of addition/subtraction problems and gets them all right one day and all wrong a week later, it is not because he doesn’t know the math. </p>
<p>My sister used Sylvan with her granddaughter, but I think it was a lot of money spent without much result. </p>
<p>I’d say there are probably differences between large urban areas and smaller towns, between individual franchisees, and I think a good tutor might be more effective.</p>