AMA Learning Center

This is the only abacus class in the area and while it is beneficial for children to learn abacus, I have to say that the place is not managed very well. The staff is not very helpful nor caring of your concerns. I do, however, love our teacher Miss Anny. She is wonderful. Luckily I don’t have to deal with the management of the school much, otherwise I’d give up on the idea all together. To sum up, abacus learning is great for children and Miss Anny is terrific.

I signed my daughter (5 years old) up for abacus classes about half a year ago. I first saw them advertised in the city newspaper and was a little doubtful. Then I saw their youtube videos that blew me away.
Six months later, my daughter now 6 can do mental math. She can add, subtract in her head up to hundreds. With an abacus she can do 5 line addition/​subtractions easily (45−64+95−26+73, etc) She can do simple equations in her head, sometimes faster than me. Let me just say that she is in kindergarten and her school goal for her is to count up to 30. I thought that was ridiculously easy but I was appalled at how many of her classmates did not know how to count to 30 yet.
This abacus training is truly AMAZING and worth every penny. I personally have horrible math. I always thought that was my personal downfall in life because my husband is a math whiz. He is so much more successful in everyday life than me, so much faster at finding solutions – not just mathematical but logical ones. I wish I had those talents. I can only try to give those skills to my kids and hope that they grow up quick thinkers like their dad, lol!
It’s not just the math part that’s amazing, it’s also reaction time to problems. I find that she is quicker with answers, problem solving skills, etc. Of all the classes I’ve signed her up for, this is the best for the buck.
It’s once a week for 2 hours and they have multiple times throughout the week at multiple locations.
Please realize though that this is a commitment. My daughter spends about 15 – 25 minutes EVERYDAY for her abacus homework. This is not alone time as I am almost ALWAYS sitting with her and either reading the numbers to her or helping her in some ways. I believe that parent involvement in any subject greatly helps a child learn.
There are certainly MANY days which she has a tantrum because she doesn’t want to do it. But persistence pays off and I am glad that she is learning that practice in ANYTHING, makes perfect!

My son has been taking the Abacus classes for about 10 months now and has just started the third level classes recently. He is now 7 and in first grade and is able to do fairly complex additional and subtraction problems as well as multiplications such as 97×4 pretty easily, with or without an abacus. His regular school will not start teaching multiplication table until the second grade but AMA has started introducing multiplication table in the second level classes a few months ago in a step-​by-​step systematic way, which makes learning abstract math concepts easier.
We have just received the report for his standardized testing results and he had done all the math questions correctly. OK, my son is pretty smart (in the eye of his mom) but he is no genius. And his is generally not very competitive. He did well enough in other subjects but the perfect math score just stood out. Although the first grade standardized math questions are thought to be pretty easy, I thought it was quite an achievement to get a perfect score nonetheless. I thank AMA (and his spending 5 – 10 minutes a day to do the AMA homework) for it.
The class size has gone down because not all kids decide to stick to the program as they progress. I will continue to feel guilty about making him go to weekend classes. But I truly believe that my son has benefited greatly from them. Hopefully he will stick to the 10-​level, 3±year curriculum willingly (or without too much whining).