Any experience with Sylvans and/or Kumons?

[luvtogo12]

Looking for opinions on Sylvans vs Kumons. I am not familiar with either so all comments concerning either one will be appreciated.

 

[Bonnie40]

All three of my kids did Kumon for years....it certainly drilled the basics and helped them in math (one of my guys also did the reading program). From what I hear, Sylvan offers more subjects and is much more expensive. Kumon worked for us, but there is the time commitment - the kids are expected to do a booklet of work a day - some people don't like that.

 

[luvtogo12]

Wow..a booklet a day? It is hard enough getting DS to finish his school homework. Thanks for your input. I guess I have a lot of research to do before Fall.

 

[johnsontrio]

We used Kumon for about one year. DD was in a gifted school in a 2/3 grade split classroom. The teacher had about 20 kids but their level in math ranged from grade level to about 8th grade math. I realized about half way through the year that DD had only done about 50 pages of math. We were planning on leaving the school at the end of the year so we did Kumon so that we wouldn't be behind at the new school.

Here are my impressions of Kumon. They do a short assessment to determine where to start your child. Their standard is that your child should have a consistent high level of performance (maybe 90% or better) for each set of skills. For example, even if your child can do division or higher level math, if your child is not highly competent in multiplication, they will start them there.

There is very little instruction given. The kids come in with their packets done and they get graded by the instructor (owner or her older child, in our case). Each packet is about 60 quick worksheet problems which takes about 10 minutes at most. It seemed to me that the worksheets were just drilling the skills. The multiplication were just the times tables drilled over and over until your child scored well consistently. After scoring well consistently, a new idea would be introduced and the process completed. Every now and then the worksheets would be a review of previous skills.

Depending on the difficulty your child is experiencing you might want to consider a tutor. Kumon offers very little instruction, maybe 5 minutes or so. Our center was very busy and the program was not cheap. If your child is cooperative with you, you can easily replicate their program using workbooks from the teacher store.

Hope that helps. Amy

 

[yvonnemum]

My daughter isn’t using Sylvans or Kumons, so I’m not quite familiar with them. She is using beestar.org. Beestar is a very cute online weekly exercise web site. It offers 2 curriculum-based exercises of math, English language art, science, etc. These exercises focus on fostering the ability of solving problems in life and very practical. My daughter loves them very much.
Lisa

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Wow..a booklet a day? It is hard enough getting DS to finish his school homework. Thanks for your input. I guess I have a lot of research to do before Fall.

Yes. My neighbor next door in Texas (my dd's friend) does Kumon and Tae Kwan Do. Both of them require daily self-discipline. Well, she has time off on Sunday only for Tae Kwan Do.

She is a "go getter" type of kid and enjoyed improving her skills.

If your son is having trouble a tutor is the way to go. They help you and teach you how to organize and study.

 

[agnes!]

One of my daughter's friends did Kumon a few years back. At the time my DD said she thought the Kumon messed her friend's math up, because they don't teach how to solve the problems the same way that the school taught it. Sometimes the teachers don't want to necessarily *just* see a correct answer (regardless of how that was achieved), they want to see a correct answer SOLVED with the method the school teaches.

agnes!

 

[Amy&Dan]

I used Sylvan for my daughter and would not recommend them or use them again. It wasn't horrible but I spent $5,800 for their reading program for my daughter and it did nothing. She didn't improve the entire time she was on the program and they were "mystified". Their solution at the end was of course to sell me more sessions. I declined. And btw, my daughter did catch up on reading, it just took some time. I think in her case, she was just one of those kids that wasn't ready to read at age 5. I did later on pay for a teacher at her school to work with her a couple of afternoons a week fora bout two months and that helped far more and was less than half the cost per hour of what Sylvan charged. And it didn't involve up front money, contracts or anything else we couldn't stop at the time we felt it was time to.

I think programs like Sylvan might be good for some kids, especially older kids, I know they have SAT prep and programs to help with study habits etc. But the bottom line is that sometimes kids who are behind in school are already stressed to the limits, overworked beyond thier ability and feeling "weird" or "dumb". When you add to the mix intensive sessions that cost an arm and a leg it puts a lot of pressure on everyone.

I recommend to parents they ask the teachers that work with their children what they recommend. Most teachers I have talked to and know don't have a fondness for Sylvan. Even though to be a Sylvan instructor you have to be a teacher (if memory serves). I have had two friends who are teachers who worked at Sylvan while their kids were young and they needed some extra income without full time hours. They both left Sylvan and didn't feel at all good about the program.

I would much more recommend you find a teacher in your school to work with your child. They know hands on the curriculum, they can work with your child's teacher on what exactly needs to be done (your child's own teacher might tutor) and again, if you decide its not working you just stop the sessions without as much financial obligation and hassle.

 

[forlove]

Hi, my DD went to Kumon last year. And we think that a whole year's expense is beyond our ability. So she is staying at home now, and homeschooled by me. I searched for a lot of websites and other materials for her, and finally chose Beestar. It has free math practice for kids, which is the most favorite of parents like us. And there are also ELA, Social Studies, Science and GT, which cost a little payment every semester. I would like my DD to stay with Beestar, and wait and see how she is going with it.

Megan

 

[merekc]

I've never heard of Kumon, however, I researched Sylvans for reading help for my DS6 over the summer. The majority of feedback I saw was negative (and of course it is pricey). I found out that our school has a list of teachers willing to tutor a variety of subjects. He ended up doing this throughout the summer and it was excellent. The tutor teacher spoke with his previous teacher as well as his speech teacher (a bonus I didn't know she was planning to do) and targeted his weak areas in private tutoring sessions. Best part it was a fraction of the cost of doing Sylvans.

 

[kristilew]

DD11 is on year 3 of both math and reading Kumon and it has been such a blessing. I think it definitely depends on your kid and your issue, but it is just what she needs.

She is highly gifted in reading and highly challenged in math. So she does the reading Kumon for enrichment and the math so she doesn't flunk out of school.

What I love about it: the daily excercises have given her a huge amount of discipline and time management skills. The daily drill in math especially has helped her to be faster and more accurate with her regular classwork and homework. Also, her test-taking stamina has increased dramatically. She used to get bored with a test and just stop trying after the first few pages. Kumon has helped her to learn focus and pacing.

I also love that checking the work and being the bad guy is not my problem with the Kumon. She knows she has to do it every day. Nothing else happens until Kumon is done, not even homework, and there is no discussion. At the twice a week sessions, she is simply handed work to correct and can't leave until it's all right. It's really her choice if she's there for 20 minutes or two hours. This is really driving home the lesson of checking her work. She moves ahead in such incremental steps that she is never drilling on a concept she doesn't understand.

Finally, I think a lot probably depends on the director. I was sad to read some of the other posts about crowded centers and lack of attention. This is not the case at our center. Students are carefully scheduled so there is always some individual attention. And I think our director could walk on water if she wanted to. No educator has ever "gotten" my kid so quickly and completely, thereby earning dd's undying loyalty. She would do anything to not disappoint Ms. Lei Shing.

Kumon is a long-term program. If you need tutoring for a specific academic issue, you will do much better to hire a private tutor. We are using it as additional schooling, really, more than tutoring.

 

[CamColt]

My DS is currently going to Sylvan. Before starting they evaluated him at needing 170 hrs(100 reading 70 writing). He now has about 120 hrs done and I can't say its been a miracle worker. He did show slight improvement on the tests they give but he seems to still have difficulty where he had it before in comprehension and writing.

He still has a couple more months to finish up, so I'm hoping for some improvement still. It is a LOT of money, but I feel if it helps its well worth it. So far I havent seen it being worth the price.

 

[wendyer]

Hi, my DD went to Kumon last year. And we think that a whole year's expense is beyond our ability. So she is staying at home now, and homeschooled by me. I searched for a lot of websites and other materials for her, and finally chose Beestar. It has free math practice for kids, which is the most favorite of parents like us. And there are also ELA, Social Studies, Science and GT, which cost a little payment every semester. I would like my DD to stay with Beestar, and wait and see how she is going with it.

Megan

Hi, Megan. How is your daughter going with Beestar? Which program has she registered? My friends also suggest using Beestar as the complement for school work. We have just started the free math, and my daughter loves it. We consider other programs to register, and which one do you suggest? Other programs will need some payment exept free math, so we would like to know which one would be the most suitable.

 

[DisneyFan32WI]

My daughter did Kumon and I thought it was the biggest waste of money. All it consists of are booklets which she would do on her own. Think of time tests.............problem after problem......after problem.

We quit after giving it a full 2 months.

 

[scottishduffy]

Ok... just an observation here.

What the heck is up with all the first time posters and beestar???? Did they just google anyone discussing tutoring so they could advertise that site?

Alright, back to your discussion.

 

[lsyorke]

DS did Sylvan for about 6 months in 8th grade for Math. I think it depends on the tutor you get. He was lucky to get a retired Math teacher who had worked in the local high school for 30 years. That money spent was well worth it. He was back on track in 6 months and hasn't needed additional help since.

 

[Bella the Ball 360]

I used Sylvan for my daughter and would not recommend them or use them again. It wasn't horrible but I spent $5,800 for their reading program for my daughter and it did nothing. She didn't improve the entire time she was on the program and they were "mystified". Their solution at the end was of course to sell me more sessions. I declined. And btw, my daughter did catch up on reading, it just took some time. I think in her case, she was just one of those kids that wasn't ready to read at age 5. I did later on pay for a teacher at her school to work with her a couple of afternoons a week fora bout two months and that helped far more and was less than half the cost per hour of what Sylvan charged. And it didn't involve up front money, contracts or anything else we couldn't stop at the time we felt it was time to.

I think programs like Sylvan might be good for some kids, especially older kids, I know they have SAT prep and programs to help with study habits etc. But the bottom line is that sometimes kids who are behind in school are already stressed to the limits, overworked beyond thier ability and feeling "weird" or "dumb". When you add to the mix intensive sessions that cost an arm and a leg it puts a lot of pressure on everyone.

I recommend to parents they ask the teachers that work with their children what they recommend. Most teachers I have talked to and know don't have a fondness for Sylvan. Even though to be a Sylvan instructor you have to be a teacher (if memory serves). I have had two friends who are teachers who worked at Sylvan while their kids were young and they needed some extra income without full time hours. They both left Sylvan and didn't feel at all good about the program.

I would much more recommend you find a teacher in your school to work with your child. They know hands on the curriculum, they can work with your child's teacher on what exactly needs to be done (your child's own teacher might tutor) and again, if you decide its not working you just stop the sessions without as much financial obligation and hassle.

I had a student who went to Sylvan. I told the mom to be SURE she had the teacher contact me so I could put her on the right path for this kid's needs and even come and conference with me (on my time by the way). When the teacher finally did come and talk to me, it was at 7am in the morning. Anyway she was telling me how hard it was to control the student and how they had to kind of walk around with him and try to get him to workand how they had not gotten that far with him. I said WHAT? NOW WAY does this kid do this in my room. I later told the mom that from our meeting she was just wasting her money. Sylvan let him run wild and he had accomplished little in the 5 months he was there. The mom agreed. I think like anything else, it depends on who the teacher is and what her style is.

 

["Got Disney"]

I was going to use one or the other of them...than someone suggested I just get a High school student that tutors.

So i called the Math Dept at the High school and he emailed me a list of tutors that come highly recommended.

I had a girl named Matty come and help my one Son last year get ready for the test to get into Honors math for high school. She was great! And he passed with flying colors

She has just started again least week and is now helping my 12 y.o(7th grade) catch up in Math. He has learned very fast with her. He struggles so much with math and we just do battle when I help him and his brother who was in honors math in 9th grade also does battle when helping him. No battles with her...he just sits and learns and walks away confident when done with her.

At out local High School the students that Tutor charge only $10 an hr and come to your home. These tutors are all AP and Honors students.

We have her coming 3 days a week. SOOOOOOOOO worth it. She can help him with all subjects but right now Math is what he needs help with the most. So try your High Schools around you and ask the head of the math dept. The teens can use the money also. All the money goes to the student...none to the school.

We also live in San Diego where every thing is so expensive so it may be cheaper where you live

Good luck!

 

[DisneyFan32WI]

One other thing I forgot....Kumon is not a tutor. It is completely independent self testing. It is repetitive test questions in a booklet. My daughter is an A student and wanted to challenge herself to the next level. Instead, she was simply bored with the whole concept.

 

[ajk912]

Ok... just an observation here.

What the heck is up with all the first time posters and beestar???? Did they just google anyone discussing tutoring so they could advertise that site?

Alright, back to your discussion.

I was kind of dissapointed wtih beestar, as well. Since it's on a tutoring thread as an alternative for tutoring, I had high hopes. I was kind of thinking of a starfall.com for math. Nope. It wasn't what I was hoping for at all. I guess I will google, there HAS to be something out there!