Kumon maths - Is this the key?
Lynne Haslam
Abstract - Sam was born on 31st August 1988 and was soon diagnosed as having Down syndrome. Having a sister-in-law in Japan, I heard about Kumon maths from her and took the opportunity to go to the open day at a local centre to see if this might help Sam. Two aspects of the scheme struck me as particularly useful for him. Firstly the steps were very small and individually tailored to ensure a high success rate and secondly, an incredible amount of repetition was possible.
Keywords - Down Syndrome, Numeracy, Mathematics, Kumon Maths
Sam was born on 31st August 1988 and was soon diagnosed as having Down syndrome. Despite the support of an excellent speech therapist and a teacher counsellor, Sam’s speech is still very poor and he is still highly dependant on Makaton. Equally, despite regular liaison with the Portsmouth Down Syndrome Trust, he was not to be an early reader. He started playgroup just after his third birthday, nursery at four and school at five, as did all his peers and has inevitably always been the youngest in his year.
Having an educational background myself, I was interested in all forms of extra input but none, it would appear, could encourage Sam to achieve some of the results demonstrated by the high fliers especially in speech and reading. However he had learned shapes, colours etc. so I knew that there must be a key elsewhere. However he could not count to 10 reliably.
Having a sister-in-law in Japan, I heard about Kumon maths from her and took the opportunity to go to the open day at a local centre to see if this might help Sam. Two aspects of the scheme struck me as particularly useful for him. Firstly the steps were very small and individually tailored to ensure a high success rate and secondly, an incredible amount of repetition was possible. Marie Hayashi (the local instructor) agreed to assess Sam and he began at level 6 counting objects up to 10 and tracing over the figures.
The child attends a class once a week where his work is supervised by the instructor. ‘Work’ is made up of between five and 10 sheets of paper which is completed on a daily basis, marked by the parent and checked by the instructor once a week. This is then kept by a parent in a loose leaf file. The work should be completed every day (and I mean EVERY day) and taken to class each week. Classes are conducted in silence so initially we were allocated a side room as Sam counted aloud but he has learned to work quietly now. After the written work, he has to place numbers on a number board each week with the aim of becoming faster each time. We started with a 30 board and now work on a 50 board.
Each week Sam was allocated his work and each evening we counted different objects up to 10. Each evening it was a different set of objects - food, transport, stationery, sea creatures etc. I estimate that we must have counted up to 20 about 1,000 times between the end of September and Christmas so this is no easy task. Marie soon combined some sheets from Level 5 - hand control - simple line shapes to go over which led to drawing round shapes and the dot to dot up to 5 then 10 etc. When the dot to dot tasks became too complex (20 plus), Sam found it too difficult to discriminate between the numbers so we abandoned this and continued with hand control. Although the idea is for the child to work independently in class and at home, I sit with him each evening. I hasten to add that I have two younger children aged five and just three who have to be quietly occupied at this time, not watching videos, or Sam would never do his work.
After six months, Sam could count confidently to 30 and recognise dot patterns up to 20 dots without having to count them. Now after nine months he is attempting to count to 100 (he occasionally stumbles at 49/50 or 50/60 etc.) and can add 1 or 2 to any number and can write numbers up to 100. Weak areas are easily recognised and the style of learning allows constant revision without returning to the same work.
We have not taken on board certain aspects of Kumon maths, i.e. the emphasis on speed (except for the number board) and working entirely independently. However Sam can complete 70 sums of +1 or +2 in 10 minutes! We do miss homework on the night he goes to Beavers. Sam has often refused to do his work in the past but I am a hard task master and insist that it is done and now such episodes are rare. I try not to point out the mistakes and he has gained enormous confidence in many aspects of his schoolwork since he began. His schoolteacher says that Maths is now his strongest subject and he gained Level 1 in his Sats although still only six years old. It has been very tedious at times, especially as the system is designed for continuous repetition, and Marie (his instructor) and I have agreed that Sam must have all the repetition he needs.
Marie tailors the steps to suit Sam and I write comments on his work about specific problems to help her in this task. Many pupils who do Kumon are gifted and are working considerably ahead of their peers, those who start with problems soon catch up and move ahead - it is not intended for our children, but I have been delighted with Sam’s progress and would recommend it to the parents of any child with Down syndrome who felt that perseverance might be the key.
The highlight of our year occurred when Sam was awarded a trophy by the Deputy Mayor at a ceremony which recognised the achievements of Kumon pupils. Most of those receiving awards were for working at one, two or three years above their curriculum level but five awards were given for progress. Sam was the youngest of these but he was certainly the proudest!