The consensus, so far, from the posters appears to be overwhelmingly against Kumon. While the points made all have merits, I would, however, like to offer a slightly different perspective.
As tutor at Kumon (albeit years ago and for less than a year), I saw many kids who came to the school either with problems in maths or otherwise lacked motivation. I remember one girl in particular who always showed up doomed face, with a fairly negative attitude, and refused to do any work both in class or at home. When I talked to her, at first her response was expected: ¡§Kumon sucks ¡K,. maths sucks ¡K., the teachers suck¡K., who need maths when there are calculators and computers ¡K., I don¡¦t need all these stupid exercises ¡K.¡¨, which frankly I had heard before, in various more polite versions. What was different about this girl was if I insisted on her doing the homework, evenly mildly, she would start crying.
To cut a long story short, after a few attempts I found out that she was actually scared of maths because she could seldom do them correctly. At that time, she was at the age of learning two to three digit divisions and she couldn¡¦t get any of them right though conceptually, she understood that division is nothing than repeated deductions, as she was taught at school. This is when perhaps Kumon (or similar approaches) can help. I still remember when I first ¡§hand-held¡¨ her to do long divisions, she kept asking me why, and I said ¡§don¡¦t ask why. Just follow the mechanics ¡Kand you will understand why.¡¨ Can you imagine the shit I would get if a professional teacher heard me saying that?
But it worked wonders. I could still remember the look on this girl¡¦s face when finally she was able to do her first long division right, without my help. Better still, she started to want to do more as she got more questions correct, and more, and more. She eventually became quite proficient in the subject. She still sends me a mail every now and then to keep in-touch, teasing me that I was the worst teacher she had had in her life ¡V turning her into a robot. She has just got her Master degree in Science and I hope she, by now, has grasped the concept of divisions rather than just the mechanics.
This might be an extreme case, but I have seen other similar examples. Not too long ago, a friend came to me for ¡§advice¡¨ on his 7-year old, who was OK with maths but hated it. His passion is in sports and he is from a very, very wealthy family, which can afford virtually everything in life. I guess his parents want to make sure that he has enough maths skills to manage the millions of dollars that would eventually end up in his bank account. So I gave him a few ideas among which was Kumon, though I told him it wouldn¡¦t work for his rich / spoiled little rascal. My friend went to check it out anyway, came back and gave me shit for suggesting an ¡§assembly line¡¨ (which Kumon is) but nonetheless, enrolled his son in it. And surprise, surprise, the little rascal loves it!! A serious sports player he is, there is a competitive spirit in him that being able to conquer pages and pages of maths questions gave him immense satisfactions. So now he jumps on maths problems at every opportunity.
Kids, like all of us, have a desire to achieve. Some get motivated by getting high academic scores, which may in turn fuel further interests, while others couldn¡¦t care less and do just as well. Am I a proponent of Kumon? Absolute Not ¡V it is indeed very tedious and boring and could be discouraging. Am I a proponent of drills as a compliment to the conceptual talks that kids learn from the formal education system? Yes, I am. For my own child, I sent him to a tutoring school, which was similar to Kumon (still drills but not as ridiculous) for about a year when he was in grade 4. I pulled him out when I felt that he had developed the discipline of doing homework. I think it worked for him.