It has been 3 months since my son started Kumon at age 3. So far, he is progressing well with no major stress.
Except for Baby Kumon, 3 years old is probably the minimum age to start Kumon in many classrooms. Therefore, in this article, I would like to explain the progress and the child's condition in the first 3 months of Kumon, and to provide a reference for those who are planning to start Kumon and for families who also started Kumon in their early childhood.
Hopes before joining Kumon
In my family, we wanted our children to learn Kumon in three subjects: Japanese, arithmetic, and English. I had high expectations that Kumon would have a great effect on the children's learning in each of these subjects.
Looking back on my own experience, I also felt that there was no merit in increasing the number of subjects in the middle of the program. I started with Japanese and math first, and then English later, but I just couldn't bring myself to work hard on English at the elementary school level when my Japanese and math had progressed to the high school level.
Therefore, we had told them from the time of the trial class that we wanted them to learn all three subjects. However, there was an unexpected limitation in starting Kumon from infancy.
English and arithmetic could not be started from the beginning of his enrollment.
In Kumon, the progression of the material is represented by letters of the alphabet. I started Kumon in the fifth grade, so I remember that my first Kumon materials were D materials (equivalent to grade 4).
However, in Kumon, the alphabet of the very first material is different for each subject.
The starting point is in the front, which is Japanese, and the 8A material starts with playing a song, and the solving of printed problems comes much later. Therefore, if your child is still very young, the teacher may recommend that you do not start math or English at the beginning.
It is true that it is difficult for children to learn English and arithmetic when they are not yet able to speak. I agreed with this explanation, and we decided to start learning Japanese at first.
So when should we start math and English? There seems to be no strict decision, but we were told that we could call on them when they have advanced to 6A in math and 2A in English. In my family, it was suggested that we start math at around the 6A level in Japanese.
Opinions differ widely on how to think about English education, especially in the early years of childhood. However, if you start Kumon at an early age, you do not necessarily need to decide your stance on English education at the time of enrollment.
I learned about the existence of a teaching material called "ZUNZUN.
Another thing I did not know before starting Kumon was the existence of "Zundun.
Zundun" is a material for practicing stroke stroke, the details of which are explained below. Before actually writing letters and numbers, you will practice drawing the lines correctly.
Review of the effectiveness of Kumon Zun Zun! It does more than just improve your handwriting!
ZunZun is available from Z1 to Z3, but after about two months, the printouts are no longer available. I guess the classroom teacher will give it to you as an option depending on your need. It is not often that we get a chance to practice handwriting, but the ability to write quickly and accurately is a skill that is not limited to Kumon, and is not to be underestimated when writing on the board at school or in a cram school class. In fact, I became much better at writing lines even in a short period of time, which was a pleasant miscalculation.
Progress report after having the students learn Japanese and arithmetic
Up to this point, I have explained the areas that were different from what I had expected before starting Kumon. We are currently working on Japanese and arithmetic, but as expected, there were areas where it was easy to progress smoothly and areas where it was easy to get stuck in each subject. From here, I will write about my impressions of the actual Kumon experience.
In Japanese, the three-word sentences were the most difficult part.
In Japanese, the three-word sentences were a difficult point. My child was a boy and tended to be a little slow in coming up with words, but I think he was still able to produce a lot of words by the time he was three years old. He also learned two-word sentences quite easily.
Three-word sentences, however, were not so easy to come by. This is probably due to the fact that I do not have many opportunities to speak in sentences of three or more words when I speak to my children. It is not easy to say, "The apple is delicious," but it is not so easy to say, "The red apple is delicious. This is the part where it is rather easy to get stuck if you start Kumon at the age of three.
Identification of 1 to 10 is the part of arithmetic that is stuck.
In arithmetic, it seemed to be difficult to correctly identify 1 through 10, and counting from 1 to 10 in order was surprisingly quick, perhaps because it felt like singing a nursery rhyme. However, it seemed to be difficult for him to understand that the symbol "7" is "na".
At least in Kumon, the timing for understanding letters as symbols comes earlier for numbers than for hiragana. Japanese already has three-word sentences, but rather than reading hiragana, the nuance of reading sentences aloud with a parent is stronger. And numbers are found in many places in daily life, so there are many opportunities for children to see and try to read them.
As much as possible, teach your child which symbol is which number, taking advantage of the timing when he or she is interested. They may make mistakes dozens or hundreds of times, but if you teach them repeatedly, you will gradually see results.
Now we have gotten past the single-digit numbers and are dealing with more numbers up to around 30, and once they get past 10, their understanding has progressed so smoothly that it seems like they have never been this way before.
Education of non-cognitive skills expanded by recognizing numbers
When one is able to do arithmetic, the number of concepts that can be handled increases greatly.
In terms of daily conversation, being able to handle numbers greatly expands the scope of conversation. How many snacks do you eat, how many times do you do it, what time of the day is it? These are just a few of the concepts that are relevant to daily life, and you will be able to work on helping them understand, if not comprehend, these concepts.
The same can be said in the elementary school entrance exam classroom. The children were not only able to do counting problems, but also to play games such as backgammon and cards, and to work on their short-term memory by asking them how many "X's" they need to take.
The younger the child, the more important it is to train non-cognitive skills. The younger the child, the more important it is to train non-cognitive skills, because the knowledge itself will not be useful until much later in life. Training in number concepts plays a major role in the training of non-cognitive skills.
Parents do not want their children to dislike studying.
As adults, we tend to have a negative image of studying, but children are just as interested in Kumon as they are in any other play activity. Knowing something they don't know is essentially an enjoyable act, and the competition and peer pressure that comes with it may cause many to dislike studying. Therefore, most children who are exposed to learning for the first time do not dislike learning that much, although their interest may be strong or weak.
In addition, since children in nursery schools and kindergartens have not yet begun to study in earnest, the factors that cause them to dislike studying are unlikely to emerge. Therefore, it is the parents who are most likely to be the cause of the child's dislike of studying during this period.
However, getting young children to do Kumon requires patience on the part of parents. I myself do not have a job that requires a lot of overtime work, and I think I have more resources to devote to my children, but I find it quite difficult to have my children do Kumon every day. It will certainly be necessary to distribute the burden within the family. At home, I share the responsibility of dropping off and picking up the children and studying at home with my husband and wife.
Conclusion
We have realized that math is the most effective in the short term. This is true in early childhood, and even after children get a little older, I think it is a very clear advantage of Kumon that they can calculate faster.
However, I believe that it is the Japanese language that will be effective in the long term. I believe that being able to read sentences quickly and accurately is an asset not only for entrance exams, but for life.
I hope to continue to work on Kumon in the future.