Entries from KumonProgram

(Apparently, not being listed on Google isn't a problem in China.)

She also sent me a copy of her paper on Kumon supplementation in Detroit schools (the results were incredible), and I'm waiting to see whether it's OK to post. In the meantime, she says it's fine to post her email:

I'm sure you must have come across Kumon mathematics? I'm a professor of engineering at Oakland University, and so mathematics is obviously very important to me. As a consequence, to make up for the problems with the American school system I've had my own daughters in the Kumon program for about ten years each--between the ages of three and thirteen. Their math skills are far better as a result. I was so impressed with the ideas behind Kumon (it is an outstanding supplement that provides the additional practice missing from K-12 math), that I started a program using the Kumon method in a local inner urban school district, Pontiac. The results are described in the attached paper.

Kumon provides the easiest, smartest way I've ever seen for a Mom to help her kids with math. I couldn't recommend it more highly.

One last thought. I've taught in China as well as the US. The US is definitely way ahead on the "creativity" side. But we are so far behind in math that it is ridiculous--and it is potentially crippling for our source of engineers and other professionals. There are many aspects involved in good engineering, for example, where a good math background is critical. Most of the engineering professors where I work now (Oakland University), are foreign born. Although I greatly respect my foreign-born colleagues, it's really an indictment of the American system that we can so rarely grow our own any more.

Thanks for your blooki, which I have bookmarked and will be following!

Kumon for children with severe disabilities, too?

Actually, the woman who ran one of the Kumon centers I brought my children to originally got into Kumon because she saw how much it was helping a profoundly mentally disabled child who she was working with. So I suspect it may be surprisingly beneficial for Andrew. I couldn't have done the outreach in my local inner-urban outreach without the incredible help I got from Doreen Lawrence, the Vice President of Research for Kumon, North America. Her phone number is 248-755-2587, and her email is dlawrence@kumon.com. Doreen is a wonderful person who is deeply oriented towards helping children. I'm sure she'd be glad to answer any questions you might have about Kumon (she knows EVERYTHING about the program).

You can feel free to post anything from my letter that might help. I just apologize for the poor writing. I just got back from China and am still jet-lagged.

Over the next week or two I'll read through your website more carefully and get a better feel for what's going on (I just found out about your website while I was in China, but scarcely had any time available while I was there). I've a lot of thoughts and background information related to what you're doing, and have some interesting and relevent experience with national policy setters in academia on this topic, but am a little bogged down now working on a book, research papers, experiments, and grant proposals. You know, the usual academic stuff! So I will try posting some once I feel I understand more fully what you are doing and how you are doing it.

Thank you ever so much for providing a forum for something that is so important to our children!

Plus--and I MUST post this--she's started a page of things she finds funny, which, thus far, has one link to a pdf file of what looks to be a PowerPoint presentation: Yours is a Very Bad Hotel.

All you World Traveling Kitchen Table Math denizens will relate.

it's getting clearer now

Why exactly, in the middle of my life, am I spending 18 hours a day WRITING A MATH BLOG? Excuse me, a MATH BLOOKI.

This was my husband's question as well.

I'm just coming off a newyorktimesbestseller, the goal nonfiction writers spend their careers aspiring to reach.....shouldn't I be Following Up with another book? (I will follow up with another book; Temple and I are working up steam. But still. Kitchen Table Math is a detour.)

So what was I thinking?

Somehow, it seemed like I was supposed to be writing a math blooki.

That reason turns out to be, in large part, the people who write comments and set up pages and create dimensional dominoes and, now, send me an email out of the blue telling me I need to take Andrew to Kumon.

That is exactly what I need to do. I need to take Andrew to Kumon.

Andrew is my little locked-in boy; he's bright--so bright, it's there, you can see it--and I don't know how to reach him.

The folks at Kumon may not know how to reach him, either, but it's obvious to me I'm supposed to give it a shot. If they don't know, something there will give me a new idea. It's a lead.

I wasn't going to figure this out on my own.

I was telling my neighbor about this today, complaining that I can't think of these things myself. I have to have complete strangers tell me: take your severely autistic son to Kumon Math.

My neighbor said, 'You can never think what you're supposed to do about your own life.'

The short answer is yes, but for the record, here is a fuller explanation. I think the best quick introduction to constructivism and its recent history in U.S. educational practice is Barry Garelick's An A-maze-ing Approach To Math, which appeared in Education Next this year. I'll excerpt a little piece of it to answer Andy's question, entirely without Barry's permission (but hopefully with his blessing).

Discovery learning has always been a powerful teaching tool. But constructivists take it a step beyond mere tool, believing that only knowledge that one discovers for oneself is truly learned. There is little argument that learning is ultimately a discovery. Traditionalists also believe that information transfer via direct instruction is necessary, so constructivism taken to extremes can result in students' not knowing what they have discovered, not knowing how to apply it, or, in the worst case, discovering (and taking ownership of) the wrong answer. Additionally, by working in groups and talking with other students (which is promoted by the educationists), one student may indeed discover something, while the others come along for the ride.

Texts that are based on NCTM's standards focus on concepts and problem solving, but provide a minimum of exercises to build the skills necessary to understand concepts or solve the problems. Thus students are presented with real-life problems in the belief that they will learn what is needed to solve them. While adherents believe that such an approach teaches "mathematical thinking" rather than dull routine skills, some mathematicians have likened it to teaching someone to play water polo without first teaching him to swim.

The Standards were revised in 2000, due in large part to the complaints and criticisms expressed about them. Mathematicians felt that the revised standards, called The Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (PSSM 2000), were an improvement over the 1989 version, but they had reservations. The revised standards still emphasize learning strategies over mathematical facts, for example, and discovery over drill and kill.

So how does this fine-sounding idea play out in the classroom? Kids tend to spend too much deriving everything from first principles. What gets sacrificed is time spent learning advanced skills, as Barry shows:

Concept still trumps memorization. Textbooks often make sure students understand what multiplication means rather than offering exercises for learning multiplication facts. Some texts ask students to write down the addition that a problem like 4 x 3 represents. Most students do not have a difficult time understanding what multiplication means. But the necessity of memorizing the facts is still there. Rather than drill the facts, the texts have the students drill the concepts, and the student misses out on the basics of what she must ultimately know in order to do the problems. I've seen 4th and 5th graders, when stumped by a multiplication fact such as 8 x 7, actually sum up 8, 7 times. Constructivists would likely point to a student's going back to first principles as an indication that the student truly understood the concept. Mathematicians tend to see that as a waste of time.

Another case in point was illustrated in an article that appeared last fall in the New York Times. It described a 4th-grade class in Ossining, New York, that used a constructivist approach to teaching math and spent one entire class period circling the even numbers on a sheet containing the numbers 1 to 100. When a boy who had transferred from a Catholic school told the teacher that he knew his multiplication tables, she quizzed him by asking him what 23 x 16 equaled. Using the old-fashioned method (one that is held in disdain because it uses rote memorization and is not discovered by the student) the boy delivered the correct answer. He knew how to multiply while the rest of the class was still discovering what multiples of 2 were.

Now, consider the constructivists' argument for allowing this lack of 'domain knowledge' to persist -- kids develop deeper understanding, 21st century skills, bla bla bla -- after having read KDeRosa's "Terminator essay" on math education.

That essay just puts this nonsense to death, don't you think?

p.s. from Catherine

Here are the 2 best passages.

Smart constructivism says:

A common misconception regarding 'constructivist' theories of knowing (that existing knowledge is used to build new knowledge) is that teachers should never tell students anything directly but, instead, should always allow them to construct knowledge for themselves. This perspective confuses a theory of pedagogy (teaching) with a theory of knowing. Constructivists assume that all knowledge is constructed from previous knowledge, irrespective of how one is taught (e.g., Cobb, 1940)--even listening to a lecture involves active attempts to construct new knowledge.**

Radical constructivism says:

It is possible for students to construct for themselves the mathematical practices that, historically, took several thousand years to evolve.

There's a Kumon center at the Barnes & Noble mall, which is pretty close. I figured I could get their number from the Kumon web site, so I clicked on the Find a Center link.

There are 19 Kumon centers within 10 miles of my house.

Are there that many Kumon centers surrounding ktm readers?


Of course, what I'd really like to know is how many kids from Masters School are also attending Kumon.


Interesting.

There's a "Kumon Center" in walking distance of my house. I just called, and got a mom on the answering machine (obvious mom voice, that's how I know), saying, "Hi you've reached the X residence and Kumon Learning Center."

This reminds me of my best friend in high school, whose mom ran a beauty salon out of their basement.

good grief

I wonder if she is my friend Kris.


Top secret mom-operated Kumon Centers in Irvington.

Strange.

But most kids said they enjoy the feeling they get from doing well in their studies, figuring out tough problems and advancing to higher levels.

"I don't know why, I just got interested in math here. Usually math is hard for me, but here it was really fun," said Marieclaire Alde, 10, of Wheaton, who goes to the Kumon Math & Reading Center in Rockville.

Two years ago, Marieclaire was having trouble with multiplication, so her parents started her at Kumon. Now, the fifth-grader is able to do algebra normally taught in seventh or eighth grade.

Kumon's self-guided learning style was developed in Japan 50 years ago. The math program involves lots of drills and memorizing -- and no calculators or computers. Thousands of work sheets cover 23 levels of math, from counting to calculus. (Kumon's reading program also takes a step-by-step approach.)

Kids come twice a week and spend 30 minutes on a subject per visit.

At the Rockville Kumon one recent afternoon, a dozen kids were busy with work sheets as four instructors peeked over their shoulders or checked papers nearby.

"You can do it," read a yellow Post-it note an instructor had stuck on the table next to 7-year-old Austen Whibley. The Silver Spring girl was racing against the clock to meet her goal: a perfect math work sheet done in less than 25 minutes. She knocked it out in 22 minutes. "That is really good, Austen!" instructor Min Woo crowed.

Kumon students who finish a work sheet with no mistakes on the first try get a star stamped in a little book. A bulletin board shows who is at what level, and high-level achievers get their names on a metal plaque.



Amisyas Aklile, 10, reviews a lesson with
Kumon instructor Min Woo. (Nikki Kahn - Twp)

Kumon in Singapore

(pdf file)

"Currently, a total of 3.5 million people in 43 countries around the world are studying Kumon. They range from pre-schoolers to pre-university students, as well as adults."

brain maths!

"I would like to tell you about a scientific research on how to train your brain through arithmetic and reading. Have you heard of a book entitled “Train Your Brain”? It was written by the first researcher on the human brain in Japan, Professor Ryuta Kawashima from Tohoku University. Professor Kawashima has 4 sons. One day, he observed his elder son playing video games at home while his younger son was concentrating on his Maths worksheets. Wondering whose brain is doing more work, he decided to get research students from the university to participate in an experiment. Comparing the brain activity of one group of students playing computer games with another group who did addition sums of 1-digit numbers, he discovered interesting results. The brain activity of students doing simple arithmetic sums is more active than the brain of those playing computer games, which is active in only 2 areas; the visual area (controlling images) and the motor area (controlling movement).

"The frontal lobe of the brain is the control centre of the entire brain. Activating this part of the brain amounts to training the entire brain. Reading aloud in English or Mandarin can achieve the same effect.

"Our Singapore Office staff are working closely with instructors to help every student in Kumon to train his/her brain through reading, writing and doing arithmetic."

So this could be true.

Or it could be dead wrong.

I don't care. What I like about this passage is: this is marketing material.

This is marketing material citing research on the brain.

As opposed to marketing material citing, say, 21st century skills, real world contexts (Antopolis), making connections, balanced assessments, or the five myths that surround mathematics reform efforts and Standards-based curricula.

I could go on.

Souped up brain waves in children doing arithmetic sums may be nonsense on stilts. It doesn't matter.

If you're going to pitch me, at least tell me something I want to hear.

---

OldWomanInKumon 17 Nov 2005 - 13:46 CatherineJohnson








Any program that promises to have me multiplying a 3 digit number by a 2 digit number in 3.5 years is fine by me.

update

We're going to International Kumon World Headquarters in Hartsdale, NY on Saturday, 3pm to 5.

The actual lessons take place at the Dobbs Ferry Women's Club. Which just so happens to be located directly across the street from the Masters School.

Googling the Women's Club

You get a lot of obituaries.

Katherine Poit, 100, a long time Dobbs Ferry resident died November 16, 2004. She was born June 26, 1904 to Samuel and Jennie (Chatterton) Ingersol.

She married Charles Poit in Poughkeepsie in 1929. Mr. Poit died in 1969.

Mrs. Poit received her Bachelor of Science Degree from Vassar College and her Masters Degree in Library Science from Columbia University.

Katherine was an honorary member of the Dobbs Ferry Women's Club and member of the Dobbs Ferry Hospital Auxiliary as well as a long time member and former Vestryman of Zion Episcopal Church.

Also, this (scroll way down).





Here's The Masters School.

Can't find a photo of the Women's Club.

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KumonFranchise 17 Nov 2005 - 13:45 CatherineJohnson



I've been Googling Kumon franchises and have found some interesting things:


First off, the LA Times has a brief but quite helpful run-down of positions for tutors.

Question: I am a former school teacher and have an interest in working part-time as a tutor. Do you have any suggestions on places I could work? What is the range of hourly fees paid to tutors?

Here's what they have to say about Kumon:

Kumon Math and Reading Centers
990 W. 190th Street
Torrance, CA 90502
(800) 213-1613
www.kumon.com

Kumon, like Sylvan, is a franchise business. It offers tutoring for pre-school to high school students in the subject areas of math and reading.

All tutors for Kumon are actually Kumon franchise owners who are former educators, or have a corporate background or a Master's degree.

The salaries of these tutor-franchisees may range from $30,000 to six figures, depending on the number of students. The company Web site features an eight-minute video with specifics on the Kumon franchise.

4th fastest growing?

Apparently, Kumon was the 4th fastest growing franchise in the country in 2004. (pdf file)

Subway was number 1, Curves was 2, and 7-Eleven was 3.

I find that pretty shocking. Food and weight loss are radically more central to people's lives than 'supplemental education.'

Kumon franchisees

Kumon's description of what they're looking for in a franchisee: (pdf file)

In general, we are looking for someone who loves working with children, is a good communicator, strong math and reading skills, ties to the community and can dedicate their full-time effort to growing the Kumon Center. Satisfactory and adequate performance during the Preliminary Training Program is also a requirement. We usually require candidates to possess a 4-year college degree, but exceptions can be made in extraordinary circumstances.

Kumon math study guide (pdf file)

Entrepreneur article on Kumon

I just found the article I knew I had: You Do the Math (1999).

The collision was horrific. In high school, mathematics had been easy for me—I could just sit for an hour and stare aimlessly while the instructor scrawled his cryptic chalk symbols. But when my lack of preparation met with my first college math exam, the twisted metal of my mind created a big fat F.

A tutor changed my world.

[snip]

From my observations, the Kumon system, which originated in Japan, is a series of tests structured to create incremental success so every student feels like an achiever. These math and reading masters have created a learning structure based on constant repetition and measured growth. Students set their own pace, review their past work and then test again.

Trainees take proficiency tests and are assigned homework. If you don't pass the exams, you'll see Kumon training methods up close and personal until you do. The homework requires many hours and is so intensive, even your kids will feel sorry for you.

Your studies will also consist of creating a business plan. If your site is approved, you'll pay only $800 for the rights to open a Kumon Center, plus $200 for the training kit.

[snip]

It appears to me Kumon is more concerned with educating children than making money. It offers no protected territories and reserves the right to place both franchises and company-owned centers wherever it wishes. Furthermore, you're not allowed to operate more than two locations.

Although educating America's youth is a laudable enough goal, let's do some math for the more hedonistic among us. Recommended tuition for a full-time student is about $75 per month plus a one-time registration fee of $30. Assuming you have 50 students by the twelfth month of operation—enough to get past your TLP—your gross revenues for the month would be $3,750, excluding registration fees. The franchisee I interviewed had 165 students, totaling $12,375 per month. Once you pass the TLP, you'll be required to pay the franchisor $28 per student per month. That leaves a gross profit of $2,350 with 50 students—$7,755 with 165 students. Subtract rent for about 1,000 square feet of space; marketing costs; and payroll for the local students who work for you after school. The result? Kumon can provide you with an income potentially better than that earned by the teachers you'll be supplementing. The franchisor is conscientious about assisting in your growth and will even help franchisees with rent for up to a 12-month period during the first 36 months of operation.

Kumon—the top-ranked miscellaneous training systems franchise and No. 23 overall in Entreprenuer's 1999 Franchise 500®—is a low-cost opportunity that's been refined during its more than 40 years in business. The franchisor offers marketing and financial support, and boasted 2,617 franchise locations in North America as of March 1999.

---

BarbaraOakleyOnKumon 17 Nov 2005 - 13:45 CatherineJohnson



Using the Kumon Method to Revitalize Mathematics in an Inner-Urban School District (pdf file)

Abstract

It is a compelling challenge to provide inner-urban K-12 students with the skills necessary for a career in engineering. A solid grounding in mathematics is the most valuable such skill and also the most difficult to develop. Many inner-urban programs meant to revitalize or strengthen mathematics education focus on students in middle or high school. At this grade level, many students already feel they have no skill with mathematics; they have a correspondingly poor attitude towards mathematics that makes any attempt to improve the mathematics curriculum more difficult. A more useful, if longer term, approach is to implement change from the bottom (elementary school level) up, rather than middle or high school, where ultimate change is so strongly desired.

The authors have introduced a supplemental program in the Pontiac School District in Pontiac, Michigan to revitalize mathematics beginning with the elementary school level (K-5). The supplemental program, Kumon Mathematics, is used by millions of school children in Singapore, Japan, and Korea; countries that score the highest on worldwide mathematics achievement tests. Kumon Mathematics appears to provide an ideal structured support in mathematics for at-risk children who receive little or no help at home, and who present the teacher of any given grade with a great variety of achievement levels. It allows students to achieve frequent and repeated successes. This paper provides details of the Kumon Mathematics methodology as well as a description of the first year’s efforts in the program, which currently involves some 1,500 elementary school children in the Pontiac School District.

this is the part I like

The Need for a Parallel Path in Math in an Inner-Urban School District

Unlike subjects such as English and geography, mathematics is an highly sequential discipline. Those who ‘miss the boat’ for example, in multiplication or division will be completely lost later, when studying fractions and decimals. Children in an inner-urban classroom typically span a broad range of achievement, abilities, and skills—often far more so than in surrounding districts. Most of the commercially available textcurriculum packages make little or no allowance for large variations in achievement levels within a given classroom or grade. Those students who are far behind grade level mathematically are often left to fall further and further behind, because there is no mechanism for them to catch up to their peers. When enough children are in this situation, the entire peer group suffers.

The Kumon methodology outlined in this paper provides an ideal parallel path that allows underachieving children in mathematics to catch up to the level at which they should be working. Simultaneously, it allows ‘super-achievers’ and normal achievers to practice, improve, and excel at their own levels. Indeed, the method by which Kumon is taught—through the use of thousands of carefully structured, logically connected worksheets—represents an excellent individualized supplement to standard textbooks.

spaced repetition

Indeed, the method by which Kumon is taught—through the use of thousands of carefully structured, logically connected worksheets—represents an excellent individualized supplement to standard textbooks.


This is where we are, in my house.

I can't create the level of practice Christopher needs, and I can't get it from Saxon 8/7 or edhelper.com (though edhelper is a terrific site).

Actually, I probably could create the level of practice Christopher needs, but I haven't had 50 years' experience doing it, as Kumon has. The Kumon worksheets have been used & revised & used again & revised again. For years.

Plus I'm sick of the battles. We had a Total Household Meltdown two nights ago—a total household meltdown involving triangulation, I might add—that left me hopping mad yesterday, and simmering mad today.

That's not good.

reactive teaching redux

Still and all, this was a total household meltdown with a reminder: reactive teaching stinks.

Early on, working with Christopher, it was clear to me I needed to be teaching my own curriculum, separate from the school's.

I needed not to be doing what Carolyn calls reactive teaching.

When Christopher & I were working our way through Saxon 6/5, I was overseeing & teaching a coherent curriculum. I gave tests after each 10 lessons, and I could see whether he had learned the concepts or not. I had some means of assessing where he was.

This year we don't exactly have time to do Saxon 8/7 along with Prentice Hall Pre-Algebra (or maybe Saxon-with-Prentice-Hall just doesn't seem appealing enough to devote the time to it. I'm not sure.) So I'm doing reactive teaching, and I'm not doing it very well.

I guess the problem boils down to efficiency. Efficiency and child psychology.

I'm 'dorking around in the dark' here, writing up Distributive Property Worksheets, having Christopher rehearse the definitions of the properties, etc....and who knows if I'm doing enough of this, too much, or too little?

Plus every day is another battle, because Christopher loathes surprises. In this realm, he is One with his autistic brothers: He Does Not Like Change. (As a matter of fact, it's entirely possible both Jimmy & Andrew are more flexible when it comes to change, surprise, & transitions than Christopher.)

Well, seeing as how I've never 'afterschooled' the subject of pre-algebra in my life, everything I write up for him is hideously new & unprecedented, by definition. It is a surprise. It is change. It is not what he expected.

Kumon is going to be repetition to the max, and that's what we need.

I take it back

I should add that I don't want to sound so dismissive of 'reactive teaching,' otherwise known as Help With Homework.

I'm still going to be working on the Prentice-Hall book with Christopher, helping with homework—AND I'm going to be supplementing with RUSSIAN MATH, which I've already begun. (Subject for another post.)

I'll probably do a decent job of this.

I'm just not confident Christopher is going to learn math without a serious, coherent, separate, supplementary curriculum. Providing a separate, coherent curriculum last year made all the difference.

He needs the same thing this year, too.

more on Oakley's paper t/k

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KumonCenterLogPage 17 Nov 2005 - 14:17 CatherineJohnson



Spent a good 3 hours at KUMON today. What a trip.

Only three white people showed up for the whole afternoon, & Christopher & I were two of them.

Then there were two black kids.

After that?

Foreign nationals. Asians & Indians. And the Asians came as couples. That right there blew me away. The only time, in Irvington, you see both parents turn show up for an extracurricular activity, it's soccer or baseball.

Not only did both parents show, they were dressed. One mom was wearing patent leather flats. I can't even remember the last time I saw a pair of patent leather flats. She looked like the kind of woman you see shopping in the Prada outlet at Woodbury Common. (If the kind of woman you see shopping in the Prada outlet at Woodbury Common doesn't instantly call an image to mind, think: Asian, young, great-looking, chic, and rich.)

There are lots of foreign nationals in these parts, it seems, but they don't mix in much, or integrate. I keep hearing from other parents things like, 'they send their kids to Japanese school on Saturdays.' Which has always sounded like an urban legend to me. Japanese school? What is Japanese School? Where is Japanese School? Can I see the building from the road?

Now I'm thinking: Japanese school.

I better look into that.

Christopher passed the test for 3rd grade, and flunked 2nd grade because he was too slow. (Speed and Accuracy, the Kumon mantra.) So he has to spend this week reviewing 2nd grade math facts, then take the achievement test again next Saturday. Assuming he passes, he starts grade 3

As for me, I was a Calculating Whiz.

When I handed in my first test, the owner said, "That was fast."

When I handed in my achievement test he said, "Done already?"

Then he put me in fourth grade.

More later.

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KumonDay1 17 Nov 2005 - 14:22 CatherineJohnson



They weren't kidding about Kumon homework being easy.

I did mine this morning:
Total number problems: 115
Total number correct: 112 (apparently, in the parallel universe that is my brain, 7 x 57 sometimes equals 64)
Total time: 6 minutes, 10 seconds

Christopher:

Total number problems: 210
Total number correct: 210
Total time: 13 minutes

total time spent fighting over Doing Math:

0 seconds

blessed spill-over effect:

approximately 2 minutes spent fighting over Doing Spelling and/or Grammar

Normally the way fighting over Doing Spelling and/or Grammar works is this.

• Christopher demands a break 'first,' before getting down to work
• I protest, then cave
• I become distracted & lose track of time
• Christopher does not see fit to remind me his 15 minutes are up

That's part 1.


Part 2 begins when I come to and remember:

• SPELLING! GRAMMAR!
• I shout up the stairs: GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW! YOU HAVE SPELLING! YOU HAVE GRAMMAR!
• silence
• I shout up the stairs again
• silence again — or, sometimes, Christopher shouts WHAT???!!!
• I climb the stairs to our bedroom (where the PlayStation lives) stalk into the room, bark at my son:COME DOWNSTAIRS RIGHT NOW AND DO YOUR SPELLING
• Christopher, not taking eyes off screen: WAIT JUST 5 SECONDS!

etc.

It's too embarassing to go on.

Around here, 'break' means 'transition.' Christopher can't stand the idea of going directly from CHURCH to MOM'S HOMEWORK, or from SCHOOL to MOM's HOMEWORK, or from anything at all to MOM'S HOMEWORK. (He's conscientious about the school's homework, and seems often to enjoy doing it. He wants, and I think needs, 'a break' before doing his school homework, too. But he doesn't try to play out the clock.)

I sympathize with the transition business. But Christopher's Problem With Transitions long ago became a ploy, and I'm sick of it. Plus, it's rotten for my own frontal lobes not to mention my own productivity; as David Allen says, you need to get stuff OFF your mental list. David Allen is right. Constantly having to remember who's not doing what is eating up what little executive function I have left.

So on the way home from the KUMON Center yesterday I nipped the transition business in the bud. I said: I don't think you should take breaks before KUMON. You should just do your KUMON worksheets the instant you get home.

My timing was perfect. There's a little bit of Magic at the KUMON Center, and Christopher was still under its spell. 'OK,' he said, looking serious. Then, a little later, "I need to build up my speed on addition."

Today, after Christopher did his KUMON worksheets, I said, "You have spelling and grammar to do."

"NO!"

etc.

I did the Choose One routine ('you can choose which one you want to do'), which also elicited a big fat NO!

But within a couple of minutes, Christopher was calmly doing a page in Megawords.

Then he checked it himself.

This is gonna be good.

---

KumonMondayOctober24 17 Nov 2005 - 13:36 CatherineJohnson



I'm starting to see why, in the world according to KUMON, 4th grade math might be just about my speed.

Timed multiplication tests are hard. Surprisingly hard. Especially when you have:

a) fractured sleep
b) two large dogs whining & barking in your face

Sometimes I think it's a miracle my brain functions at all.

today's score

sheets D6 a&b - D10 a&b
D6 a&b: 23 problems; 1:28; 0 errors
D7 a&b: 23 problems; 1:25; 1 errors
D8 a&b: 23 problems; 1:23; 1 errors
D9 a&b: 23 problems; 2:17; 1 errors
D10 a&b: 18 problems; 1:39; 0 errors
total problems: 110
total time: 8:12 minutes
total errors: 3


I hate errors.

if you are a constructivist, please sit down before looking at this

The big red 0 here—and it has to be red—signifies a perfect score.

A big, fat, red zero!

That's not very friendly, I don't think.


And see Number 2 Pencil for another take on friendly numbers.

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BarbOakleyOnKumon 17 Nov 2005 - 13:28 CatherineJohnson

The person who believes in constructivist approaches to math may be interested to learn that recent breakthroughs related to neuroimaging and learning are pointing towards the importance of automaticity in order to learn a subject well. In other words, you can "understand" how the chords work on your guitar, but to be able to play the guitar well, you have to have that automaticity of basic concepts that comes with practice.

My daughter, who is in Chile now as an exchange student for her last year of high school, is telling me she's interested in a career involving math, because she likes it and everyone tells her how good she is at it. She wasn't one of those natural math whiz kids. It's just that the every day practice, (never too easy, never too hard) that she got over the years with Kumon made an enormous difference.

Good enough for me.

My regret with Kumon is that we didn't start years ago.

Especially seeing as how I have been placed in the 4th grade.

Kumon kids at Columbia

I love this anecdote:

I thought you'd be interested to know that there was a group of students at Columbia University involved in an intense afterschool activity involving community outreach. They were all sitting around comparing notes about themselves, and were struck--the one thing they all had in common was that they had all been "Kumon" children. Their take on this unusual coincidence was that, because their background and comfort level in math was so high, they had a lot more time than other students to participate in after-school related activities. I heard this story from Doreen Lawrence, the Vice President of Kumon North America Research.

The only bad thing is that "Kumon" children don't seem to grow up to be K-12 teachers. They're too busy becoming doctors, scientists, engineers, and businesspeople, because their top grades related to math have opened those doors for them.

Personally, I am hoping to grow up to become a K-12 teacher.

It's obvious just from teaching my Singapore Math class that I'm going to need vastly more automaticity than I have now. You almost have to experience it to believe how much facility you need with elementary math to teach five 10-year olds.

on not screaming and yelling at your mother

So tonight, after tennis lessons, I was driving Christopher's friend Joe back to his house. Joe knows all about the Kumon Situation, because he was with us last week when we drove up and down Clinton Avenue in Dobbs Ferry trying to find the Kumon Center.

Joe said, "I'm glad I don't scream and yell at my mom about math, or I'd be in Kumon, too."

best Kumon materials online

This is the one site I've been able to find that gives the sequence of Kumon worksheets:

Kumon math sequence
Kumon reading sequence


Apparently the goal, when a child starts young, is 'G by 5,' meaning the child completes level G at the end of 5th grade. The first word problems appear at that point, I believe:

Students are introduced to positive and negative numbers, as well as to basic algebra. Students use their previously learned four operations skills to master linear equations. A word problem set rounds off the level, allowing students to apply everything they have learned in Level G.

In Grade 6 you're doing worksheets that look like this:

Students will learn to solve simultaneous linear equations in two to four variables. Concepts of numerical and algebraic value are strengthened. Students are introduced to transforming equations, inequalities, functions and graphs.

This week Christopher is doing review sheets from Level B; I'm in Level D.

We're a little behind.

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KumonAverageStudentsBeyondGradeLevel 17 Nov 2005 - 13:25 CatherineJohnson



I've mentioned that one of the main differences between U.S. & Asian parents is that Americans see math as 'genetic.' You either have it or you don't.

Asian parents recognize innate talents as well, but are far more inclined to see high math achievement as a function of hard work, not genes.

Here's the KUMON company's take on the issue of advanced achievement for average kids:

Advancing Beyond Grade Level

Let's follow Mr. Kumon's thought a little further on this topic of self-study.

Our aim should be to educate our students so well through the Kumon Method that they don't have to depend solely on classroom activities to be able to deeply understand the course content. Students who develop this capacity will have a good chance to enter leading universities. To make this possible, we must help students acquire the ability of self-study from an early age and accelerate their level of study beyond their school grade. (Emphasis added)

This last line is the key. It follows that if Kumon teaches children to become independent learners, some of them will learn at a faster pace than their peers. This is certainly what happened to Mr. Kumon's own son, who was doing high school level work while still in the 5th grade. Multiply that times millions of students and you have a lot of children who are studying way beyond their "normal" school level.

Mr. Kumon recognized that self-learners are motivated by their own progress. It is only natural when climbing a mountain to look up and see what lies ahead. Students don't need to be pushed to scale these heights, but they do need to recognize that there are concrete goals and interesting challenges ahead. For that reason, it is important to encourage study of materials above the current grade level.

The biggest problem, in Mr. Kumon's view, was not getting children to want to tackle the challenges of advanced study, but getting parents and Instructors to believe that it was possible and desirable:

The most important and difficult feature for people to understand about the Kumon Method is having students advance beyond their actual school grade. The majority of people don't have the experience of studying material beyond their school grade. Consequently, they don't believe that children have that ability. Even Instructors find this fact hard to believe at first. The history of the Kumon Method can be called the history of our efforts to convince people of this fact.

That was written many years ago, but the same problem still exists. Many parents just don't believe that children can study beyond what is considered a "normal" level for them, or that it isn't "natural" for them to do so. If they see examples of children who are progressing at a faster-than-normal rate, they are inclined to say "The parents are pushing them too hard" or "That just isn't normal." In fact, advancing beyond grade level is a normal consequence of consistent, long-term Kumon study. Every year more and more young children in Kumon show that what we expect as "normal" for a certain age is more a reflection of the limits we have put on children than anything inherent in the child's ability to learn. More Kumon parents are spreading the word that what is really "normal" is for a child to be learning a wide variety of things, not under pressure or stress, but because children naturally enjoy learning about the world around them.

[snip]

Are most of the Kumon children who are studying one, two or three grade levels beyond their normal school level geniuses? I posed that question to Stan Laser, a former math and science teacher and later vice principal of Brooklyn High School in New York, where he was in charge of 1,200 students. Stan, who is now a Kumon Instructor, said that very few of the children who outperform later on are abnormally bright at an early age. "I sometimes ask the parents of children who turn out to be superstars in Kumon if those children were exceptionally bright when they were very young....In almost every case the parents say no, my child was just an average child." In other words, the great majority of the children who excel in elementary school or junior high are not geniuses. Their growth and success in attaining higher levels of ability has emerged through regular study.

All of this would have Toru Kumon nodding and smiling with a knowing look on his face. Isn't it obvious, he would say to us? Children are not only capable of advanced study, but need to be given the opportunity to advance. But....it took time for him to understand this process:

Initially, it was difficult to determine how children who advanced to higher levels would develop. Many Instructors worried that letting children advance so far would bring about other problems. But as children advance so far, they naturally develop self-motivaion and acquire self-esteem and self-confidence because of their abilities.

Everyone thinks it is perfectly natural when children who were exceptional when they started Kumon eventually move beyond their actual school grade. But if Instructors see that children who had average abilities at the beginning also advance by the same process, they will have a more profound understanding of the learning effect of the Kumon method.

I believe this account, because I've seen it myself, throughout my adult life: slow and steady wins the race.

Back when I was starting my dissertation, my advisor told me to write 500 words a day. Period.

If I wrote 500 words a day for 6 months, I'd have a dissertation.

I had already figured this out myself, but it was good to hear it from him.

hard work versus steady work

I've noticed that hard work isn't always the key to success.

For a lot of undertakings, it's steady work that matters, or seems to.

Ed and I spar about this from time to time. He'll say, 'The problem with teaching math to children is that it requires a huge amount of drill, and drill is boring. So the question is, how do you make learning math less boring?'

This is a common sense view, but it's not what I see in my Singapore Math kids.

What I see is that they gain speed and accuracy—the KUMON goal—incredibly quickly.

I've mentioned my student who has a special needs classification. The first time he took a Saxon Fast Facts test, he needed 10 minutes to complete a 5-minute sheet.

He was so slow that I insisted on doing the writing for him the next time. That time he finished in 8 minutes.

The third time he took the test—the third time, with no practice in between—he did his own writing and came in under 5 minutes.

Kids learn fast, and they pick up speed fast, too.



I've also seen, in my own life, the effects of small amounts of effort put in on a daily basis. When KUMON says 'daily,' they mean daily. You do your KUMON worksheets every day of the week. No rest on Sunday.

But the worksheets aren't hard.

As far as I can tell, it's true that if you put in 10 minutes a day, day in and day out, you see shockingly high gains over time.

Judging by the experience of folks around here, of course, this is not the case in grad school.

And of course cognitive scientists have focused on the very high degrees of practice necessary to become, say, a virtuoso violinist.

But that research isn't really relevant.

Think about it. Is anyone trying to become a virtuoso of two-digit multiplication?

No.

What you're trying to do when you're learning elementary mathematics is to acquire speed and accuracy and then move on. That doesn't take 10 years of study. Nor does it take hours of drill.

It takes 10 to 20 minutes a day for 6 to 8 weeks.

I've come to feel that most people are missing how easy it can be to learn elementary mathematics when you have a coherent course of learning & practice.


keywords: drill and kill

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KTMPollCostOfKumonInWestchester 17 Nov 2005 - 13:27 CatherineJohnson



Anne just sparked me to get this New KTM Poll posted:

today's question

How much does KUMON cost per month for one child living in Westchester County?



Bear in mind that in my area SAT tutors are commanding fees as high as $800/hour.

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BrianMickelthwaitOnKumon 17 Nov 2005 - 13:27 CatherineJohnson




I'm in the middle of reading Brian Micklethwait's terrific article about his experience as a KUMON instructor, but had to stop and post this passage:

There is also in Kumon what I think of as a very Japanese emphasis on the physical process of drawing the numbers and on physically handling the world generally. (Think of the Japanese fascination with hand-done graphics.) One of the ancillary games we get the children to play is simply placing numbers on a number board. This doesn’t just help them to understand numbers. It also helps them to get better at simply handling things, while thinking at the same time. As with so much of Kumon, doing the number board so that every number is where it should be is in principle very easy, so no child is humiliated by not being able to do it. But doing it fast isn’t so easy, so the cleverer ones are kept interested. (We also give the cleverer ones more complicated things, like “leave on the board only those numbers divisible by 3”.)

This emphasis on the physical handling of the world also explains, I think, why the Kumon people are so reluctant to get involved with computers. To me, an Anglo-Saxon techno-nerd, Kumon absolutely shouts computers. Each child doing an individually selected clutch of repetitive problems. Relentless and potentially very tedious marking. Even more tedious analysis to tell you what each child should be doing next. A huge apparatus of collective, centralised analysis to see which methods work best and to tell the rest of the world. This is surely the sort of stuff that computers — and their recent combined offspring, the Internet — were invented to supervise. But I sense that the Kumon people resist such notions. There’s so far been no mention of computers in any of the Kumon back-up or sales literature that I’ve seen. Computers, I hear them saying, would only complicate things.

I've come to believe that paper-and-pencil math is math—that there's something necessary, at least when you're learning,^* about the experience of actually holding a pencil or a pen in your hand and solving problems.

Carolyn talks about the craft of math; Temple repeatedly & chronically encounters people who've learned to create scale drawings on computers and, as a direct result, cannot construct scale drawings. (Temple believes that the visusal processing and motor systems in the brain are connected. I won't be surprised to learn that she's right.)

I've been surprised at how unmoved Americans are by the Singapore bar models. I fell in love the instant I saw them, and wanted to draw them. With Sybilla Beckmann, I think the bar models are probably the reason for the Singapore curriculum's success.

I've mentioned several times that I've worked at least 300 bar model problems. I've said, too, that doing this changed my brain. I'd put money on it.

The thing is, I really don't know why this should be the case. I'd been thinking maybe they develop spatial reasoning, which is connected to mathematical ability.

It hadn't occurred to me that bar models might work simply because they involve lots more pencil-and-paper work than the traditional U.S. math curriculum.

But the explanation may be as simple as that.

When I first started drawing bar models, I badly wanted to paint one. I wanted to do a big, bold 'blow-up' of a Singapore bar model in oil, and hang it on the wall.

Maybe one day I will.

what is the opposite of a fount of wisdom?

Here's Steve Leinwand:

Shouldn't we be as eager to end our obsessive love affair with pencil-and-paper computation as we were to move on from outhouses and sundials?

The answer is no.


^*Temple says that older people who learned to draw by hand & then switched to CAD have no problems at all. The problems turn up strictly in the work of younger employees, who've never done physical scale drawing using pencil and paper.


Swoop and Swoop
the craft of math

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KumonInWestchester 17 Nov 2005 - 13:26 CatherineJohnson



That's what KUMON costs in Westchester County.

For that you get 150 worksheets a month, plus 4 visits to the center.

You can't even get a haircut for $85 a month here.

Best deal in town.

4th grade graduation

Last week the KUMON guy told me he was accelerating my pace, because I am 'very strong.' I will treasure those words forever.

So I do my last set of 4th grade worksheets this week, then start 5th grade next week.

Let me tell you something.

A timed work sheet filled with huge long division problems is not easy.

update

Timed fraction sheets are way easier.

I got my first 100% since starting KUMON.

Although having to express a fraction like 77/18 as a mixed number under time pressure and with basically no room for 'side calculations' is a challenge.

I did side calculations anyway. Wonder if I'll get dinged for those.

JUMP's fractions program

Samantha pointed me to the JUMP program, which I had never heard of. It sounds fascinating.

I'm going to order JUMP's 6th grade workbook, as well as The Myth of Ability: Nurturing Mathematical Talent in Every Child by John Mighton, founder of JUMP.

I bring this up here, because he begins remediation with fractions. That's where he starts. With fractions.

it has proven to be an extremely effective tool for convincing even the most challenged student that they can do well in mathematics.

[snip]

The various steps you will follow in teaching the material in this unit are outlined in great detail below, and also on the Fractions worksheets themselves. The individual steps are never more difficult than “count on your fingers” or “copy this symbol from here to here,” so the steps themselves will never be a barrier to weaker students. If you follow the instructions in this manual very closely, even your weakest students should achieve a mark of 80% or higher on the final diagnostic test (included at the end of the manual).

I haven't read through his material closely yet, but it seems that the reason he chose fractions as his jumping off point is that you can manipulative fractions using extremely friendly numbers.

Which is true!

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KumonIsASupplementalProgramOnly 17 Nov 2005 - 13:26 CatherineJohnson



Ken raised a question I'd been meaning to bring up: can KUMON be used as a primary curriculum?

KUMON says no, and I agree. The KUMON worksheets are designed to be supplemental. There's no 'KUMON instructor,' even though everything you read talks about the 'KUMON instructor'; there's just you, your worksheets, and your mother, who grades the worksheets.

What KUMON gives you is a highly structured, well-thought-out set of 200 worksheets per grade level—worksheets that have been used and revised over 40 years' time.

One of the interesting aspects of working through the KUMON sheets as an adult is that they give you practice in things you didn't know you needed practice in until you started doing the worksheets. They're diagnostic, in a way.

instructional practice

As people here point out all the time, at least when it comes to math, 'practice,' 'learning,' and 'conceptal understanding' are not three separate things.

I'd call the KUMON sheets instructional practice. The problems usually aren't randomly generated, which is probably one reason why they don't randomly-generate a new set of problems for a student who didn't do well on the first set. (I should add that KUMON, like DI, is designed to ensure that students do do welll on each set.)

Instead, a KUMON worksheet often gives you a structured sequence of problems designed to illustrate a principle.

As an example, a long division with remainder sheet might have the student work this series of problems:

25/12
26/12
27/12
28/12
29/12
30/12
31/12
32/12
33/12
34/12
35/12
36/12


Doing each one of these problems in sequence is going to give a 4th grader a sense of what a remainder actually is.

update

Christopher did Sheets C36-C40 yesterday: Multiplication up to 7.

The first sheet lists all of the times-7 facts in a table.

7 x 1 = 7  Seven ones are seven.
7 x 2 = 14  Seven twos are fourteen.
7 x 3 = 21  Seven threes are twenty-one.

and so on


Several of the pages have a set of 3 skip-counting problems:

Fill in the blanks with the appropriate numbers.

7  14  21  28  ___  ___  ___


One page begins with this sequence of problems:

7 + 7 = ___
7 + 7 + 7 = ___
7 + 7 + 7 + 7 = ___
7 + 7 + 7 + 7 + 7 ___



The rest of the problems are all math facts written horizontally.

Here's the rest of 37a, which is the page that opens with the times-7 facts listed in a table. The times-7 facts are written and solved in sequence.

7 x 1 = ___
7 x 2 = ___
7 x 3 = ___
7 x 4 = ___
7 x 5 = ___
7 x 6 = ___
7 x 7 = ___
7 x 8 = ___
7 x 9 = ___



KUMON has the kids do quite a lot of non-mixed practice. Russian Math does the same thing. (Can't remember, offhand, how much of this Saxon or Singapore do; I have a sense Singapore does quite a bit....)

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KumonInstructionalPracticeInPrimeFactors 17 Nov 2005 - 13:26 CatherineJohnson



I love this.

These are the first two pages of the prime factor worksheets.

I may have to repeat 4th grade

Check out this worksheet:




I would like to know how, exactly, a person is supposed to do 24 problems like 111/16 in 3 to 4 minutes, without scratch paper?

I don't know that you're not supposed to have scratch paper; that's what I assume since no one ever seems to be using scratch paper at KUMON. And the owner has expressly used the phrase 'side calculations' as a term of opprobrium

So I'm thinking I'm supposed to be able to do 24 of these problems in 3 to 4 minutes using no side calculations.

Well, that's not possible.

I have to have scatch paper.

I have to do side calculations.

So I may be repeating the 4th grade.

(The problems on the back are even worse.)

timed CGFs

Now there's s a novel concept.

I have never, in my life, found a greatest common factor in a hurry.

Here's the last sequence of problems I just did ('find the greatest common factor'):

(14, 28)

(14, 35)

(21, 63)

(20, 48)

(24, 56)

(27, 54)

(24, 84)

(36, 54)

(32, 48)

(35, 70)

(27, 81)

(35, 105)


This is an exercise in working memory blowout, let me tell you.

To do the page in 3 to 4 minutes, you have to either instantly recognize the GCF for a large proportion of the problems, or remember where you last saw the prime factors of 48 or 54 or whatever number you're trying to prime-factor-on-the-spot at the moment.

You have to be looking for patterns in the numbers themselves and remembering the patterns, and you have to be looking for patterns specific to the worksheets themselves, and remembering those patterns.

That's way too much remembering.

I can't say I'm looking forward to 5th grade.

good grief

I was just Searching around the site, looking for some post I did about the IL state tests awhile back, and I found this.


I wonder what else is out there I don't know about?

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DiscoveryLearningWithKumon 17 Nov 2005 - 13:26 CatherineJohnson



picking up speed faster than you expect
Interesting.

I've mentioned before that, in my experience, kids pick up speed on timed tests unbelievably quickly.

I can't find the post I wrote about this, so I'll tell this story again.

A friend of mine has a son who has math talent that isn't being recognized because he's a high-level special needs kid (so high that the school is trying to declassify him). He came to my after-school class last year, where I gave him a Saxon Math Fast Facts sheet to do. The time limit is 5 minutes.

The first time he did one it took him 10 minutes. Something like that. He was so slow, I decided I would do his handwriting for him. I told him just to say the answer & I'd write it down. (He'd been in the multi-sensory class, which emphasizes handwriting, and now had beautiful but very slow & deliberate penmanship.)

So the next time he came to class, probably a week later, I did the writing, and it took him 8 minutes to do the sheet.

It didn't seem to me that my being the answer-writer was helping matters any, so the next week I had him do his own writing.

He did the sheet in 5 minutes.

He starts out with a time of 10 minutes; 2 sessions later he's hitting 5 minutes.

With no practice in between.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

That is now happening to me.

Last night it took me 7 minutes to do one of the KUMON fraction reduction sheets, which are supposed to be completed in 3 to 4 minutes.

Today I'm down to 3 to 4 minutes.

I got faster overnight.


efficient drill
The notion of efficient drill is something I never hear people talking about.

Constructivists oppose timed tests & an emphasis on speed on principle:

De-emphasis of rote work. We believe that children must indeed learn their math facts, but we de-emphasize rote memorization and the frequent administration of timed tests. Both of these can produce undesirable results. Instead, our goal here is that students learn that they can find answers easily using strategies they understand.
source: TRAILBLAZERS Teacher Implementation Guide

Math-content types like us, along with cognitive scientists, believe in practice, practice, practice:

Q: How long does it take for Mozart to become Mozart?

A: 10 years of 12-hour a day practice.

Remember this?





But this is looking at things the wrong way, I think.

We're talking about math facts and procedures, not symphonies. The goal of practice in math, at least in the early years, isn't to become brilliant fraction-reducers.

The goal is to become efficient and accurate fraction reducers.

There's no reason to be talking about 10-year timelines of 12-hour a day practice in the context of students learning math procedures.

The question we should be asking is: how quickly can a student learn math procedures to mastery?

And: do some worksheets produce more efficient learning than others?

I don't know the answer to either one, but I think I do know, at this point, that the focus on 'hard work' and 'practice, practice, practice' is distracting us from the question of efficiency and acceleration.

I'm thinking the KUMON approach to creating worksheets, which is the opposite of the randomly-generated, mixed-practice approach American texts & web sites tend to take, may promote faster learning.


discovery worksheets
I think I've run into a snag with my KUMON worksheets, which is that I'm having to do a fair amount of discovery learning.

This week's worksheets require the student to reduce fractions 'in one step.'

I was never taught how to do that systematically.

(Apparently, I was also not taught to READ THE DIRECTIONS FIRST. On sheet D195b, I didn't notice the line saying "Some fractions can be reduced by 13" until I posted it here on ktm.)

The worksheets are designed to be supplemental, so I'm assuming that, in Japan, students must be taught to reduce fractions rapidly and systematically.

I can reduce fractions rapidly, just because I'm fast. But I do it in two steps. If I don't instantly see the GCF, I start with the factor I do see, then work on from there.

These worksheets expect a student to instantly see the greatest common factor.

Last night, after my dismal 7-minute performance, I started thinking how a person would go about instantly seeing the greatest common factor. I came up with various things, none of which mean that I instantly see the greatest common factor, but all of which help. (I didn't get a chance to print out people's Comments on prime factorization last night, because the computer had locked up. So I was on my own.)

For instance, First check to see if both numbers are even. Second, check to see if one number, when divided by 2, becomes a prime incapable of further reduction. Another one: if you've still got two even numbers after the first division, then the GCF definitely has a 4 in it. Look to see if the numerator itself is the GCF. And so on.

This is all to the good; my conceptual understanding of prime factorization—which was already pretty good, thanks to Russian Math, is jumping.

But it's haphazard, and I don't think it's probably what the KUMON folks had in mind.








teaching efficiency
I've mentioned any number of times now that it's extremely difficult to get a child—any child—to budge from a procedure he's learned to mastery.

The problem is, all of the procedures kids learn when they're just starting out need to be pared down at some point. Christopher still, when he does the four operations, crosses out the number he's borrowing from, writes in a '9' or a '10,' etc. He does nothing inside his head.

He doesn't need to keep writing in all those digits, but he does.

I'm wondering whether Japanese curricula explicitly teach efficiency as a goal. If you tell a child, from the beginning, that the goal is to solve problems as efficiently as possible, might that be the grade school equivalent of mathematical elegance later on?

And is that part of the point of the KUMON worksheets?


Susan on Mad Minutes; Carolyn on college kids who don't know their math facts

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PenfieldInTheNewYorkTimes 17 Nov 2005 - 15:02 CatherineJohnson



Ken strikes gold:

'Innovative' Math, but Can You Count?

LAST spring, when he was only a sophomore, Jim Munch received a plaque honoring him as top scorer on the high school math team here. He went on to earn the highest mark possible, a 5, on an Advanced Placement exam in calculus. His ambition is to become a theoretical mathematician.

So Jim might have seemed the veritable symbol for the new math curriculum installed over the last seven years in this ambitious, educated suburb of Rochester. Since seventh grade, he had been taking the "constructivist" or "inquiry" program, so named because it emphasizes pupils' constructing their own knowledge through a process of reasoning.

Jim, however, placed the credit elsewhere. His parents, an engineer and an educator, covertly tutored him in traditional math. Several teachers, in the privacy of their own classrooms, contravened the official curriculum to teach the problem-solving formulas that constructivist math denigrates as mindless memorization.

"My whole experience in math the last few years has been a struggle against the program," Jim said recently. "Whatever I've achieved, I've achieved in spite of it. Kids do not do better learning math themselves. There's a reason we go to school, which is that there's someone smarter than us with something to teach us."

Such experiences and emotions have burst into public discussion and no small amount of rancor in the last eight months in Penfield. This community of 35,000 has become one of the most obvious fronts in the nationwide math wars, which have flared from California to Pittsburgh to the former District 2 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, pitting progressives against traditionalists, with nothing less than America's educational and economic competitiveness at stake.

In these places and others, groups of parents have condemned constructivist math for playing down such basic computational tools as borrowing, carrying, place value, algorithms, multiplication tables and long division, while often introducing calculators into the classroom as early as first or second grade. Such criticism has run headlong into the celebration of constructivism by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and such leading teacher-training institutions as the Bank Street College of Education.

The strife has taken on a particular intensity here in Penfield, perhaps, because the town includes an unusually large share of engineers and scientists, because of the proximity of companies like Xerox, Kodak and Bausch & Lomb. Skilled themselves in math, they have refused to accept the premise that innovation means improvement, and in their own households they have seen evidence to the contrary.

This is about the worst I've ever seen school officials come off in a news article.

Susan Gray, the superintendent, attributed the criticism of the math program to "helicopter parents" who are accustomed to being deeply involved in all aspects of their children's lives. "Because the pedagogy has changed, the parents who knew the old ways didn't know how to help their children," she said. "They didn't have the knowledge and skills to support their children at home. There's a security in memorization of math facts, and that security is gone now."

helicopter parents

unbelievable

She opened her mouth and said helicopter parents to a reporter.

Helicopter parents and a whole lot more; every word is hostile, belittling, and contemptuous—and she got busted for it.

Next paragraph:

YET many of the dissident parents have extensive math backgrounds and thus the ability to criticize the curriculum. It is also true that most of them tolerated the constructivist program for its first several years, until bitter experience drove them into rebellion.

The article closes on this note:

Still, in the math wars, tweaking around the edges does not settle the issue. The dispute is fundamental. To its advocates, constructivist math applies the subject to the real world, builds critical thinking and rescues classes from numbing repetition.

But to those parents in Penfield and elsewhere - who have children in junior high unable to do long division or multiply two-column numbers, who pay for private tutors or sessions at traditionalist learning centers like Kumon, who wonder why there are so many calculators and so few textbooks - the words of a recent graduate to the Board of Education ring tragically true.

"My biggest fear about going to college," Samantha Meek said at a meeting last spring, "is attending introductory math courses How am I going to be able to explain to my professors that I do not understand what they are talking about, that I do not have the same math background as the rest of the students, and that I cannot do mental math and can barely do it with pencil and paper?"

Wipeout.

Susan Gray is probably trying to remember how to walk and talk right about now.


one more thing
So Ed was going on about how Nicolas Sarkozy had no business calling the rioting beurs "thugs," and how destructive that is, throws gas on the fire, etc.

OK, he's right. When you've got urban riots happening, it's almost certainly not the best strategy to call the rioters thugs.

Ditto for school superintendents.

Memo to Susan Gray.

When you're in the middle of the Math Wars, helicopter parents is the wrong choice of words.


International Red Cross Symbol for Guess and Check






update
There's a link to the Penfield web site on the sidebar: Teach Us Math


Letter to the Editor

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KumonReading 21 May 2006 - 13:16 CatherineJohnson



We're well on our way to becoming an all-KUMON-all-the-time household.

Today Christopher wanted to take the KUMON reading test. He asked to take it.

He aced the first test, then aced a second test. (He may even have taken 3 placement tests; I'll ask.)

Then he placed into 5th grade (EI). In real life, he's in 6th.

My thinking at the moment, in terms of what it is I think Irvington schools should do—and what some Irvington parents would sign on for:

Irvington should have an American track, and an Asian track.

That simple.

The Asian track would incorporate the brilliant suggestions all of you left earlier.....or it would incorporate none of them (most likely), but would simply be a curriculum designed to teach to Asian standards. Not to American standards.

Speaking of which, Christopher is a very strong reader. My guess is that he's not the best in the school, but he's close. I think there are two kids in the school who are better. Interestingly, those two kids are the ones who won the two Math Olympiads awards last spring. One is a boy, the other a girl, and I know both of them. The boy I know from way back in nursery school; the girl I taught the girl in my after-school knitting class.

Another interesting thing: I ran into the boy's mom at back to school night, and after congratulating her on R.'s award, I said, "R. must really like math." Her reaction: "No, not really."

This is probably the smartest kid in school, and one of the very best in math, and he doesn't really like it!

OK, back to Christopher.

Christopher taught himself to read. That's how good he is.

IIRC, approximately 10% of kids, when given systematic phonics instruction, begin to read spontaneously.

That was quite an event in our household, because shortly before Christopher began to read we had our teacher conference, at which we learned that Christopher was considered at risk for dyslexia because his handwriting was so bad. Bad handwriting is a risk factor for dyslexia, apparently because the area of the brain that manages handwriting directly borders the area that manages reading—something like that—and when one brain area isn't up to snuff there are often spillover effects. At least, that's what I remember of John (Ratey's) explanation. I'm guessing that probably all kids with dyslexia have bad handwriting, but not all kids with bad handwriting have dyslexia.

(If someone knows the story on this, let me know & I'll revise this post.)

Christopher's handwriting was horrific. It was so bad the school had been pulling him out for O.T. without even telling us—he was being given a 'free' special needs intervention without our having to fight tooth and nail to get it.

That's bad.

Naturally I was completely traumatized by this conversation; I was thinking, 'OK, two autisms and now one dyslexia, thank you very much.'

Ed blew it off, which was seriously annoying (wives aren't fond of the Wife Filtering Mechanism, in case any of you were wondering), but he was right, because two weeks later lo and behold Christopher was reading.

We haven't followed his reading scores closly (Short Attention Span Theater) but we did manage to get the word that he was reading at a 4th grade level in 2nd grade.

Of course, when we actually got to 4th grade we had the Fourth Grade Slump everyone talks about, which led to my 'second-stage phonics' theory that you aren't done teaching decoding after you teach the phonemes.

Second stage phonics: syllables. Megawords, a spelling program that teaches the syllabic structure of words, seemed to put Christopher back on track with reading, and he was one of the few kids in his school to earn a 4 on the TONYSS ELA last spring. It was a high 4, too, with a perfect score on the hardest section.

My point being: he's a good reader.

Yet he's still a full year behind grade level in KUMON.

So it looks like he's going to start the KUMON reading program next week.


to be continued



update 5-20-06

I suspended Christopher's KUMON reading program today because it had become far too expensive once he cut back to doing just 1 sheet a day, if that. More on this later.

We're sticking with KUMON math, which I continue to feel is worth its weight in gold. He's doing only 1 page of KUMON math a day, too, but it's worth it. I'll bump him back up to at least 3 a day this summer.

Christopher completed one level of KUMON reading, E1, which corresponds to 5th grade. (He's nearing the end of 6th grade). Today I handed in sheets E11 18a & E1 185a.

We've all slacked off on KUMON, so we need to get back on track. The sheets I picked up today say 4-15-06 on the front; today is 5-20.

I've reached G40a. The G level introduces algebra, & I'm 40 lessons into Saxon Algebra 1, which has 120 lessons in all. So my KUMON worksheets are probably going to dovetail with the problem sets I do in Saxon & in Dolciani. (I'm suspending Saxon so I can work through Dolciani's chapter on functions, slope, and coordinate graphs. Then I'll go back to Saxon.)

Andrew is at 3A46a in KUMON Math. I may start him in KUMON Reading this summer.

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KumonReadingPart2 17 Nov 2005 - 13:25 CarolynJohnston


Catherine and I were talking yesterday about how it seems reading curricula are completely missing from elementary schools. Once a kid has the mechanics of reading, it doesn't seem there is a clear road forward; and it seems to have been that way for quite a while. As a kid in elementary school, for example, I didn't get grammar instruction; my husband did. Core Knowledge, at least, tries to standardize at least on the content of the reading kids do in elementary school, but it doesn't otherwise try to impose any teaching philosophy.

Apparently kids like mine -- who get the mechanics of reading very early, are fluent readers and writers, but who have persistent problems with understanding what they are reading, and cannot organize a short theme to save their lives -- are pretty rare. That must explain the absolute absence of actual teaching on the subject, and the fact that Ben was always the odd man out in his special reading and writing groups in elementary school. They'd all be struggling with spelling and slow reading, and he was a perfect speller and a fast reader; but he'd misinterpret things he read literally. You'd be amazed at how typical kids are able to learn idioms by osmosis, for example; and you'd be amazed, too, at a very young autistic kid's response to phrases like "keep your eye on the ball".

So the Kumon reading stuff looks kind of appealing, actually. Ben's been tracked into remedial reading and writing, and if I'm not careful, he won't surface. We've been addressing vocabulary, which is a good bit of his problem; he doesn't learn words in context, and needs explicit instruction in vocabulary (he picks it up quickly, but it needs to be explicit!). It doesn't look as though Kumon addresses vocabulary, but it addresses most of the rest of the issues he has trouble with: main ideas, reasoning, inference, comparing and contrasting.

So, ironically, I may end up taking Ben to Kumon for reading.

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KumonInstructorsProfile 21 Nov 2005 - 23:05 CatherineJohnson



from the Dobbs Ferry/Hartsdale/WhitePlains Kumon Centers:

Susan and George, working as a husband-wife team, have been running Kumon centers since 1989. Their original motive for running a Kumon center was to help their three daughters improve their math and reading proficiency. All of them benefited from the program: Ada, the oldest daughter, graduated from Cornell Law School and is now an attorney at a Wall Street corporate law firm; Wendy, the second daughter, graduated from MIT and is now pursuing her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins Medical School; Jamie, their youngest daughter, graduated from MIT, majoring in Computer Science, is now a Software Engineer working for IBM.

Both Susan and George are strong believers of the Kumon philosophy. They enjoy working with children and take great pride in helping students improve their math and reading skills, and develop good study habits that benefit them in all school subjects. Since becoming empty nesters, George and Susan spend almost all of their spare time working at the Kumon centers. Currently, they run 3 centers in Westchester with a combined enrollment of over 200 subject students. Recently, one of their students, Edward Zhang, an eighth grader, just completed the entire Kumon math curriculum – Level Q!^*

Mrs. Susan Liu holds an M.S. in Statistics from the University of Rhode Island and studied in the Ph.D. program of Statistics at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. In addition to being a Kumon instructor, Susan is a technical programming manager at an advertising firm.

Mr. George Liu received his M.S. degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Rhode Island and studied Bio-statistics at the School of Public Health, Columbia University. Besides being a Kumon Instructor, George is also a vice president at a major financial institution.


^*Level Q introduces students to the study of probability and statistics. Students study combinations, permutations, trials, binomial theorem, and distributions.

Kumon math sequence
Kumon reading sequence

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GoalOfKumon 20 Nov 2005 - 17:57 CatherineJohnson



this is interesting—

The aim of the Kumon Math Program is to prepare students so that they can excel in high school Math.

The lower level Kumon worksheets are designed to build mastery of the four operations, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, which are the basics of mathematics.

Students with a mastery of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division can easily learn more complex operations such as long division, fractions, equation solving and factorization.

Students who are struggling with math's are most often those with poor foundation skills. Kumon’s programs are structured in a linear fashion to ensure that students master one concept before moving onto the next. Kumon students are able to progress based on an assessment of their own needs and skills. This is one of the major differences between Kumon and school-based learning.

The Kumon Math's program consists of 23 levels covering content from counting to calculus. It is suitable for preschool children through to senior high school students and those doing tertiary study.

The Kumon Math curriculum has 460 steps: from counting practice for pre-scholars (level 7A) to college level mathematics (level Q). Within those steps it is easy to find one that is "just right" for any child. There are 10 worksheets for each step, totaling 4,600 worksheets in all.

Kumon believes that if children are having a hard-time learning, they should not be blamed. The problem usually lies in the type of materials being used, or the type of instruction being given. Based on this philosophy, Kumon worksheets are constantly evaluated to iron out any shortcomings.

The path to advancement is made even smoother by the focus on repetition. This focus gives children the chance to consolidate each topic area until they can get the correct answers quickly and effortlessly. This level of fluency and the focus on practice feeds into and complements the formal teaching that children receive in school.

4,600 worksheets.

That oughta keep me busy for awhile.



department of veiled references

Enrolling your child in Kumon will mean concrete learning steps every day. Kumon learning is practical and relies on paper, pencil, eraser and daily practice. Most parents would be familiar with this focus on content rather than on the tools of computers, calculators or theories.

In truth, there's not a lot of time left over for erasing.

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TheKumonStudent 24 Nov 2005 - 00:38 CatherineJohnson

Kumon students are organized, tenacious, modest and skilled. With strong study habits and long term, positive learning experiences they are well prepared for higher learning.

Mr. Liu liked the Brian Mickelthwait article I gave him. He told my friend Kathy, who brought her daughter to the center today, that it accurately describes Asian culture.

Asian culture, he said, 'is persistent and patient.'

Me, I've always had to rely on a double-dose of persistent. Which is not a bad work-around.

source:
The Kumon Method

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ChicagoTribuneOnBadCollegePrep 18 Nov 2006 - 22:22 CatherineJohnson



from Susan, an article in the Chicago Tribune:

In the lowest-level writing class at Columbia College, freshmen learn about the pitfalls of run-on sentences and the correct places for commas. In basic math, they learn about fractions, decimals and simple geometry.

Sarah Rehder didn't expect to start college in either of these courses. A graduate of Curie High School in Chicago, she assumed she was prepared for college.

But like many students in the state and nationwide, Rehder learned through a college placement exam that she wasn't ready for college-level coursework. Now she's learning--and paying for--material that she arguably should have mastered in high school. [ed.: high school?]

"I thought high school was supposed to prepare you for college," said Rehder, 18, a photography major and the first in her family to attend college. "I'm just doing the same thing over again that I did in high school. I didn't learn anything."

It's interesting that she's the first in her family to go to college. Her parents would have had essentially no domain knowledge about college prep, so they left her education up to the schools. Big mistake.

Trust but verify.


who's in charge here?

State report card data released this month show that about 40 percent of high school juniors failed to meet standards in reading this year, and 47 percent failed to meet standards in math.

In Chicago public schools, 59 percent didn't pass the reading test, and 73 percent didn't pass the math test.

question for Susan

Do Chicago city schools use constructivist curricula?

That figure—73 percent—is awfully high.

I don't know what the tests are like, but usually you see disadvantaged urban kids scoring higher on math than reading, I think. At least, math scores on NAEP have been rising, while reading scores have been relatively flat. (I'll have to fact-check...)


how much do we spent not teaching kids fractions in grade school, middle school, and high school?

"You want to put those scarce dollars toward new classes, financial aid, and not toward remediating students for the same skills they should have been taught in high school," said Kristin Conklin, who studies college readiness as a program director with the National Governors Association. "The big equity argument that shouldn't be lost is that these are the students who can least waste money on classes that don't count."

[snip]

Last school year, 21.3 percent of community college students in college credit programs took at least one remedial course, spending $106 million on the classes, according to the Illinois Community College Board.

This is one of Laurence Steinberg's themes.