Ugh. These are agonizingly boring and lack context.I really enjoyed a lot of the Kumon books for little kids, such as their books on drawing, cutting, pasting, and mazes. But my son is 7 years old now, and the workbooks have really lost their sizzle. This book just has page after page of math problems. There’s no context, no fun story, no attempt at putting the problems into an applied setting. Study after study has shown that drilling-style homework is basically useless at this age level (Google “too much homework”). There is some tiny support for age-appropriate reading and for simple math practice, so I assume that’s why these types of math worksheets are still out there. However, anything that is excessive or that sucks the fun out of learning immediately negates any tiny benefit that might otherwise arise, and these worksheets would definitely fall into the fun-sucking category. They are nothing but rote repetition, and the world would be better off without them. If you have a child who might like to do some things like this for fun (or in place of similarly agonizing homework sheets they get from school), then I would try something else. If you have electronic gizmos, I would try some of the math apps, like Rocket Math, Hungry Fish, or Math Evolve. If you specifically want workbooks, try “Mathematical Reasoning” by Brumbaugh & Brumbaugh. “Math Analogies” by Brumbaugh can also be fun. And we really enjoy “Balance Math and More” by Femiano & Slyter. These are still workbook pages, so there is still a drilling element. But these other workbooks make the kids use their noggins, include story problems and applied situations, and are just generally more fun. You could also do a google search for “chisenbop,” which is a finger counting method that will get you all the way up to 99. That will make it easier for kids to add on their fingers, and it’s also the same exact process that is used with an abacus. It’s a really fun “cheat” that doesn’t actually cheat at all, and it may help kids who are struggling. Actively adding doesn’t really take much more time than memorizing addition facts, so, personally, I’m in favor of giving kids the tools they need to jump through the hoops at school and then just being patient with them.
