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I'm running out of patience with Kumon. They keep making my daughter repeat the same workbooks. She already knows the stuff, she's not moving forward and it's not helping her. There's an opportunity cost to making her do all these Kumon books when she should be forging through Saxon Math.
On the other hand, if I let her drop Kumon, will she ever master long division?
I have a friend who's had the same experience. Her daughter is stuck in a Level and can't get out!
I'm guessing that the Morningside people wouldn't allow a child to be stuck on anything. I think they'd drop the child back to the component skills and practice those skills to mastery. Then you'd hope to see contingency adduction - you'd hope to see the child take a soaring leap up to the complex, composite skill.
So: what are the component skills of division?
estimation?
multiplication?
or....subtraction, estimation, multiplication....?
13 comments:
FWIW long division is the hardest part of Kumon. I think that's because estimation is more art than science.
My son had a tough time with it, but I kept him going, and he came out on the other side.
Some of this is drudgery, but I think you've got to work through it.
Everyone says the division set of worksheets is the killer level!
We had the same problem with KUMON. Megan got stuck in Level C; she knew the stuff but couldn't do it as fast as they wished. And the monthly fees kept going up-it was $70 per subject when we started and a year later it was $105! The place was always packed, though. We've switched back to Saxon Math and Singapore's Challenging Word Problems. Megan's starting 6th grade but her language problems (along with 4 years of Everyday Math) have put her 2-3 years below grade level. We're about halfway through SaxonMath 54 and going through the Singapore 2nd grade word problems. I'd say the hardest part for us re long division is the estimating part with a 2-digit divisor. Estimating (especially given my daughter's issues) is REALLY difficult as she never understood the point of it--why would you want something close to the answer and not THE answer? But you'd also need multiplication and subtraction and just the mechanics of where to put the numbers and what order to do things. We used graph paper to keep the columns straight. KUMON didn't have too many word problems and that is what we really need help with given the comprehension and language delay.
Some of this is drudgery, but I think you've got to work through it.
Drudgery is the perfect description to describe Kumon long division which I believe is level D.
It certainly brought about the most ferocious grumbling from my daughter. But she stomped through it and the light at the end of the tunnel was fractions which she considered almost a reward for surviving all that long division practice.
I don’t understand why anonymous’ daughter cannot move forward if “she already knows the stuff”.
My daughter’s going through long division right now, and it is very difficult for her. She’s been slowly picking up her speed from about ten minutes a page to the 3-5 range that Kumon requires.
I think the estimation is what she’s struggled with the most. It helped that her Kumon instructor suggested she move the decimals so, for example, 2451 divided by 47 becomes 25 divided by 5. That’s one technique to get her started, and if she weren’t stone cold fluent with basic math facts this wouldn’t work so well.
It bothers me that after so many worksheets, she’s not better at instantly estimating the 2-4 digit division problems. I’ll have to ask her instructor about this.
I suspect that most Kumon student have mastered the subtraction and multiplication before they get to long division. Lining up the numbers and following the steps could be significant challenges, but I would think that estimating is the biggie.
the light at the end of the tunnel was fractions which she considered almost a reward for surviving all that long division practice.
Yes, my daughter is very excited about doing fractions next!
Hi Kathy --
I just started my daughter with the Singapore Challenging Word Problems 2nd grade. The first challenge was for me to learn and become comfortable with the bar models.
My daughter also has comprehension difficulties, and we are moving very slowly through the first section, doing the problems at least twice. I think she’s starting to get the hang of it.
"I don’t understand why anonymous’ daughter cannot move forward if “she already knows the stuff”.
Let me explain. We're stuck in double digit by single digit multiplication. I know my daughter knows this material very well, but she'll get distracted in the Kumon center and miss five questions in a row. They won't let her move on.
She'll get the first four pages completely right, and then lose focus, and miss several questions. I'm quite sure she can do the math and that her problem is attention and focus. She really needs to move on and conquer long division. But they won't let her out of Level C.
I don't think repeating yet another booklet of double digit by single digit multiplication problems is helping her. I'd like to let her quit Kumon, but I wonder if she will ever develop fluency with long division if I do. Very frustrating.
One thing to check is to see if she is missing the same problems on the end of level tests. This will tell you if she is having trouble with the math or just losing focus.
If it is a focus thing, I would ask the instructor to let her proceed forward with the next level.
Long Division ...
add, multiple, subtract then divide
and talk with the Kumon instructor ... our local woman is terrific and is actually structuring the sheets differently for each of my two kids -- one so that she will gain more confidence (because she will be at or ahead of her classmates) and the other because his mind is geared toward numbers
check your child's work at home (after its done - to see if she is loosing focus on the last sheet at home as well)
also, my local Kumon has a separate room the kid can take the test in rather than the larger room if need be ...
We have found that the best approach to division is first teaching key multiplication facts to a very high level. We usually teach one time table at a time. Typically we start with x10, then 2, 5, 3, 4, 9, 6, 7, 8.
Since many of these include others they get better as the student goes along. AND the student finds they can (after practice) come very close to their X10 frequency on other tables. BUT we start doing division long before ALL of the x facts are fully mastered--with the facts that the student HAS mastered.
Once the simple multiply and divide facts are mastered it is fairly easy to teach students to handle multiple digit problems in both forms.
The biggest enemies of success are the weird new algorithms that are being taught by constructivist teachers. Welcome to learning more about precision teaching. You can find links, etc. at our website, www.fluencyfactory.com
The biggest enemies of success are the weird new algorithms that are being taught by constructivist teachers.
Boy did we learn that this year!
So, fluency factory is a combination of direct instruction and precision teaching. Sounds quite powerful. It seems that your focus is reading, is there such a combination of PT and DI in place for math as well?
Math can be one of the toughest subjects there can be out of all school subjects besides the sciences. My son has been with Kumon for two years, and it seemed average since there were no obvious/dramatic changes in improving his math solving. We had paid for workbooks and worksheets for him to work on his own, but it seemed to have waste time and our money since most of it was repetitive. My son is not getting the help he needs in order to solve the problems easily. He told us that the teachers/tutors at the center did not even bother to help him with the problems, rather, he had to complete them by himself and then they would come to check. Why waste money and time for your kid if they are not there to help them? After telling us that, we decided to look for an alternative that would be better for him and save us money. An alternative that grabbed our attention was Beestar. We gradually switched over to Beestar within the past year and am in love with the results we see. We also see that he is happier and enjoying the activities at Beestar. We will be with Beestar for quite some time for sure!
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