What grade level is Kumon Japanese K for?
Kumon Japanese K is designed for high school students, and the J, K, and L materials are divided according to the scope of study rather than grade level, with the J and K materials covering ancient Japanese and the L material covering Chinese.
In addition, students who have completed these materials in the second year of junior high school will receive a trophy as a "highly advanced learner.
What kind of material is Kumon Japanese K?
From Kumon Japanese A to I, each material is divided into two parts, I and II, and it is necessary to complete 400 printouts in order to advance one letter of the alphabet.
Now let's check the official information about the Kumon Japanese K materials.
The "Critical Reading Comprehension Based on Material Study" is a step up from the J materials. The student will acquire the ability to accurately grasp and summarize the arguments (central information) and evidence (peripheral information) of the writer (critic) in relation to the source text. Cultivate the skill of "summarizing arguments based on an understanding of the argumentative process of the critical text.
The course uses ancient texts as materials for understanding the argumentation of critical texts.
Ancient texts" are a tool to improve reading comprehension.
It is noteworthy that the treatment of ancient texts is not that much focused on.
In the K material, we will continue to deal with classical Japanese as in the J material. The K teaching materials also cover well-known works such as Manyoshu and Kojiki. However, Kumon's aim for the K materials does not mention the fact that the texts are written in ancient Japanese.
While exam preparation for the ancient Japanese language tends to focus on vocabulary and grammar, Kumon does not seem to necessarily emphasize this. This is a trend inherited from the J materials.
Instead, Kumon focuses on "critical reading based on material study.
In Kumon's ancient texts, the ancient text itself and its modern translation or commentary are presented as a set.
Up to the I material, you have read single sentences. You have been trained to understand the relationship between sentences and sentences, paragraphs and paragraphs, and to decipher the meaning of sentences. In contrast, here you will be reading multiple sentences. There is the original text, and there is the commentary. The ability required here is to understand the relationship between separate sentences.
In many cases, Kobun and Kanbun are often treated as independent subjects from modern literature. However, in Kumon Japanese, Ko-Bun and Kanji are included in the Kumon Japanese course materials as a step toward improving reading comprehension.
In K materials, the text is read together with literature.
Literature and critical texts exist separately. While this is a new concept in Kumon Japanese, it is considered the norm for the format of books and articles. There is basically no such thing as a book without literature.
I have previously described H materials as "teaching materials that confront the difficulty of reading. I have said that if the author has some kind of specialty or background, even if the text is written for the general public in a plain narrative style, the author's unspoken assumptions will make it uniquely difficult to read.
In other words, a text for the general public is a text with fewer implicit assumptions. The text is designed so that even those who lack expertise or knowledge of the subject matter can understand the content to a certain extent by reading the text.
However, as the level of content increases, the number of implicit assumptions increases. Since there are dozens of references for one text and dozens of references for each text, from a certain stage, it is no longer the case that "I happened to know all the literature = tacit assumptions from the beginning.
If you do not know the implicit assumptions from the beginning, you will need to learn new implicit assumptions from the literature. Understanding one text is connected to reading multiple texts.
The "critical reading based on material study" that comes out of the J material is the first step toward reading the author's unspoiled text.
The ancient texts emphasize reading comprehension. Memorization of knowledge is not sufficient for the exam.
On the other hand, there are some things you should keep in mind.
You should not have excessive expectations for mastering the knowledge aspect of the ancient Japanese language.
The J to L materials on ancient Japanese and Chinese texts are only treated as subjects for "critical reading comprehension based on material study". The ancient texts are accompanied by modern translations and explanatory texts, and do not necessarily require memorization of knowledge for reading comprehension. The knowledge aspect needs to be studied separately when studying for the examination.
The reading comprehension aspect provides a significant advantage. This is because by being exposed to representative works of ancient and Chinese literature with explanations, students can acquire prerequisite knowledge of the works and historical backgrounds, which is difficult to acquire in exam study. However, in many cases, reading comprehension is rarely required, especially in less difficult questions, and most of the points are given to knowledge questions.
In the short term, learning the K materials may not lead to surprisingly high scores.
The need to read literature is beyond the college entrance exam.
Reading and writing with reference to literature is basically an area dealt with in college. Many of you probably learned how to cite literature in college.
In addition, most of the questions for university entrance examinations are reading comprehension of a single passage, and are designed so that the contents can be understood by reading that passage alone. Even Japanese language questions at the University of Tokyo do not require reading multiple sentences, but instead require knowledge of many "implicit assumptions," reading speed, etc. Therefore, the questions are designed to be optimized for university entrance examinations.
Therefore, it is possible to think that studying with K-materials is an excessive advance when considering optimization for university entrance examinations. The ability to read literature is a skill that will definitely be useful once you enter university, but it is not necessarily essential at the stage of university entrance examinations.
The ability to read literature is useful for college entrance exams.
Although the ability to read literature is directly beyond the scope of college entrance exams, there are areas where this ability is useful indirectly.
When you read a book for the general public, you basically have little or no awareness of the references. This is because they are designed so that you can read them without being aware of them. However, every book has an original bibliography, and new texts are written in a way that develops the claims of the bibliography.
In the K materials, the relationship between the text and the references is presented in a very simple way. While there are dozens of references in a book, the K materials are basically a one-to-one relationship between the text and the references.
Therefore, as your child progresses through the material, he or she will get some idea of how the book or article is formed.
Of course, it is not essential to know how the book or article is formed. It is possible to understand the text without knowing. However, knowing the origins of a book or paper will deepen your understanding of the subject matter many times over.
When you are served a dish, you can taste it without knowing the ingredients or the chef. However, if you know the origin of the ingredients and the background of the chef, you will be able to feel the story behind the creation of the dish and enjoy it more deeply. The same goes for idol songs. You can enjoy the song by itself, but by learning about the idol's personality and the path to success, you can enjoy the song many times more. At work, a person who understands the background of instructions and can work with a certain degree of flexibility is more valuable than a person who only does what he or she is told to do.
In the same way, knowing the origins of a book or paper can lead to a higher level of understanding.
The key to conquering K-materials is experience in asserting oneself.
Based on the above, we can say that the key to success in K-materials is the experience of self-assertion.
The importance of output was mentioned in the explanation of the G materials as something similar to self-assertion; the G materials include contractions and require the ability to compose long sentences, so output is effective.
The self-assertion that I mentioned as a key point in the K materials has a different nuance.
The relationship between "text and literature" exists in everyday life.
Reading the previous sentences, you may have thought that reading both the text and the literature is very advanced. However, this relationship between text and literature does not exist only in advanced texts.
For example, when you see a news story about a celebrity cheating on her husband, you tweet that cheating sucks. This is no different from the relationship between text and literature. My friend seems to like that boy. Heh, I like that type. This too is a fact/opinion relationship. Although you may feel defensive when you hear the word "reference," it does not mean that what you are doing itself is something very special.
So once you get used to the uniqueness of the ancient texts, it is possible that you will be able to understand the K materials more easily than you think. When you complain or swear with your friends, or when you play a secret game with adults, you can say how you feel and what you want to do. If you have many experiences like this, you will realize that expressing your opinion based on someone else's opinion or facts is not something special.
Opportunities for self-assertion are to be found in friendships.
It is possible for parents to prepare opportunities for output. For example, if you watch the news and ask your child to express his or her opinion, you can create an opportunity for your child to express his or her own opinion.
However, the number of opportunities for assertiveness in friendships cannot compare to the number of times a parent can provide such opportunities. There are dozens of people in the same class, and there are many times and ways to spend time during recess and after school. There are dozens of opportunities each day to express what you want, who you think of, and what your position is.
It does not necessarily require any special prodding from the parent to give your child these opportunities. In fact, it is more important not to over-emphasize them. When you have already decided what to do and how to evaluate someone, there is no need for your child to think about his or her own opinions. The need to think for themselves arises because they and their friends have the authority to decide what to do and how to think.
If input is important, free time such as during breaks and after school should be used for studying. Making effective use of skimming time is a basic way to ensure study time. If studying for exams has begun in earnest, there is no objection to this approach. However, if you are giving the opportunity for self-assertion, there is great value in free time where you do not have a set idea of what to do.
Let's consider what the child doesn't know the answer to.
If your child has progressed through Kumon to the K materials, he or she will have accumulated a significant amount of input. He or she has read a lot of texts and understands what adults are saying. If you ask them for their opinion on a slightly more difficult social issue, they may give you a reasonable response.
However, because they have so much information, there are only a limited number of situations in which they need to think about something new on their own. If you know the answer, you will not have the opportunity to think about how to get the answer.
What are the areas in which my child, who has learned so much, does not yet know the answers? Thinking about this may shed a different light on what tends to look inefficient or wasteful in terms of input.