CMA at Punggol: 2-Hand Abacus and Mental Arithmetic

Just an update:

Son has been attending Punggol CMA class for the last 3 months. So far these are my observations:

1)He seems to be able to pick up the skills progressively by diligently doing the homework daily or almost daily.
2)The materials/practice books are well written and in a way that prepare the students/ground them for progression of concepts and skills
3)The teachers (especially teacher Ong and teacher BH)are approachable and friendly and would happily discuss their charges progress/difficulty with parents, so that parents can know what help to render to their kids at home
4)The students enrollment at the centre is increasing fast; I see over the months class size increases and new adjacent class opened for my son's time slot. I suspect their established reputation and good accolades from popular forum like "kiasuparents" play a big part despite their higher fee compare to other abacus classes available in Punggol.

Advises for parents:
1)For parents who like to let the kids gently learn the abacus skill at no rush, starting at K1 would be ok. Earlier than that I personally think may not be necessary. I'd rather first ground them in associating 1 to 10 to fingers on both hands, I realize that helps son quickly progress on recognizing beads representation to the numbers. Also earlier than K1, the kid might not yet has the finger dexterity and also mentally not ready for addition and subtraction concept, so not so cost effective if you get what I mean.
2)For parents who can afford to move them swiftly, because you have time to coach them and the kids have time on their hand, starting in K2 may be a good idea. In my son case I put him through twice-a-week sessions and try to make it a point to do daily bite-size practice. He has shown progress beyond my expectation, now in the third month going through the thick "115-Li" book, the one that teaches all the formulas. He is by no mean a fast kid, but I think progresses relatively well, and I sense the sustained momentum helps. But a big caveat here, parents need to follow them closely and kids have the time.
3)The CMA abacus uses the Japanese "soroban", meaning it has 1 bead(representing 5) at the top and 4 below. This means you have formulas for borrowing/giving to the top bead as well as the next more significant bead. Compare to the 3G abacus, where you have 9 beads in a column without needing a 5-representing bead. Thus soroban abacus have more formulas to remember and tougher to the kids in that sense.
4)The "115-Li" is a critical phase, as confusion on which formula to apply might happen. Good parental support is crucial, in fact for any enrichment classes, parental follow-up is needed for best result. In my son case I learn together with him, through the VCD he'll bring back every lessons, and be there to support and guide him in this phase of absorbing the formulas.

I could have taken up 3G abacus or alternative abacus classes in Punggol(one of them also offers 2-hand method), but picked CMA for my below reasons:
1)Its popularity and being an established name, their method and system must be effective. This is crucial since the drilling in abacus training can be boring to a child and I'm willing to pay a premium for a better bet. Their reward system of exchanging "chops" for little gifts does motivate. My son especially likes the after-class incentives, from the teacher, of game time on the 2 free-to-use computers whenever they progress well in class.
2)I kind of like the 2-hand idea, and I'm sold on the exercising both left-right brains premise.
3)The twice a week sessions is priced at $200/10 sessions compare to $280/10 session for weekly one(books included). On top of that you can get 8% discount if you sign up for 3 consecutive terms and another 8% discount if you have referral. So ends up not too bad a deal. The other 2-hand abacus by another group in Punggol charges $180/10 weekly lessons at the same 1.5hrs excluding books.

So, so far I have no regret sending son to CMA and as long as he can stay through the "115-Li" phase and progress on, it is money worth spending, namely for building up addition and subtraction concept, number bonds concept, borrow and giving concepts, 2-hand and lots of pictorial visualization which I believe would work their right brain. I'll surely recommend Punggol CMA to any like-minded parents.

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