At what grade level are the Kumon Japanese H materials?
Kumon Japanese H is a teaching material at the level equivalent to the second year of junior high school. It is the standard level that junior high school students are doing.
If you finish this material in grade 5, you can receive a trophy as a "highly advanced learner. Many students who are preparing to take the junior high school entrance exam often transfer from Kumon to a cram school for junior high school entrance exam around grade 4, and if they have progressed to this level, they have acquired the ability to take the junior high school entrance exam.
What kind of materials is Kumon Japanese H?
Kumon Japanese H is divided into H I and H II. First, let's check the contents of HⅠ.
You will read long sentences of about 1200 characters and develop the ability to grasp the connections between the various expressions in a sentence, as well as the function (role and function) and arrangement of each paragraph. 50 H-grade Suisen books and haiku and tanka poems will be introduced to broaden your reading and vocabulary. Study the Joyo Kanji characters through haiku and tanka poetry to expand vocabulary.
Haiku and tanka are a major feature of the course. The number of reading comprehension questions based on recommended books has been reduced, and the amount of writing in reading comprehension questions has also been reduced.
Let's continue to check the contents of the HII material.
Students will focus on the relationship between words and phrases and learn the skill of summarizing duplicated content, etc. Students will develop the writing skills to summarize multiple answer sections by condensing words and phrases based on the word specification and being aware of the relationship and development between words and phrases and sentences. Students will expand their vocabulary through the study of regular Kanji characters. In addition, grammar study and reading comprehension at the level of high school entrance examinations will be conducted based on the reading comprehension skills that have been cultivated.
The main focus of the H II materials is on "contractions. Interestingly, at the end of the H materials, there are also questions for the high school entrance exam.
What are the key points to attack the H materials?
What is noteworthy in the H materials is the appearance of "characteristic Japanese. What does this mean?
Even if it is the same Japanese language, it has its own characteristics for those who write and speak it, and in some cases, communication may not be possible even if it is in Japanese. The most obvious example is dialect. The same word may have different nuances in the Kanto and Kansai regions, and there are situations where it is not even possible to understand a dialect with a distinctive accent, such as Tsugaru-ben. Japanese is a diverse language.
And it is in the H-learning materials that this diversity comes to the fore.
The first thing you will notice is the appearance of haiku and tanka, which are covered in the HI materials from No. 121 to No. 190. Haiku and tanka use old words, and not many adults can intuitively understand their meanings. Other texts in the course materials also include older literary works such as "Sanshojo" and "Dokutoru Manbo Ryoryu-ki" and science-related texts such as "Welcome to Anatomy Class" and "Dolphins Want to Know".
All of them can be read without problems by those who are familiar with them, and they do not use a lot of particularly difficult terms, but they are unique in their structure and wording, and require a slightly different reading style.
The concept of "contraction" emerges from the G materials, requiring precise understanding of the content as well as the ability to write. However, the H materials are characterized by such invisible barriers that make them difficult to understand.
Difficulty in reading" is diverse
The "difficulty in reading" caused by this uniqueness is an area that is difficult to systematically address. This is because uniqueness is more or less unique to each author or discipline.
For example, the uniqueness of a literary work may be completely different in nuance from the uniqueness of Osamu Dazai's work to that of Kenzaburo Oe's work. Even in science-related texts, there are different kinds of difficulties between mathematics, chemistry, and physics. It is not realistic to take countermeasures against each of the myriad types of difficulty in reading.
There is only one solution. Instead of addressing each individual reading difficulty, focus on the experience of reading the difficult text itself.
If you simply read a difficult text, you will stop at the point where you say, "I read it, but it didn't sink in. However, once you have the experience of understanding some kind of difficult-to-read Japanese, you will realize that the Japanese language is actually diverse, and that sometimes difficult-to-read texts contain information of great value.
This experience will help you when you are faced with other types of reading difficulties. It is a text that contains information that is difficult to read, and if you can read it, you can see that there might be something interesting in it.
Are there areas in which you have a passion to overcome the difficulty of reading?
We have talked about how experience comes into play when reading difficult texts. So how do you take the first step toward gaining that experience?
This comes down to your child's own curiosity. It means having one thing they love to do that they are passionate enough about to overcome the difficulty of reading.
Many of Kumon's problem texts are great books. If read properly, they can have an impact on the rest of your life. However, the themes are general and not necessarily in line with each person's interests. Even if the material is worth reading, it is meaningless if you cannot overcome the first obstacle and understand it.
The fact that you have read more difficult texts that are more in line with your child's interests beforehand is a big advantage.
The most obvious example would be a favorite object such as insects, dinosaurs, or trains. If there is a yearning to go abroad, reading texts in another language may also be a source of food for thought. If a parent reads books, he or she might try to read difficult books out of admiration for adults.
Attempting to expose your child to a higher level of the world about an area in which he or she is interested can be effective.
The experience of overcoming reading difficulties can change the future.
It is also important to note that understanding "difficult Japanese" is a great strength in the real world.
For science-related jobs, it is academic books and theses. If you work in the legal field, you can read articles and precedents. If you are a programmer, there are official documents, etc. If you are trying to acquire expertise, there will always be Japanese that is difficult to read. Of course, it is not unusual in some fields for the source to be in a language other than Japanese, but this does not mean that you can understand it because it is in Japanese. No matter how much the performance of translation tools improves, there will always be difficulties in the content itself.
I think most people get a headache just reading highly specialized texts. That is why simply being able to read and understand a text gives you a big advantage in the real world. This is not limited to professional jobs. Even if you are working with professionals, you will often be recognized just by being able to understand some technical topics.
Until the G materials, there was more of a nuance of basic academic skills. For example, the amount of writing increased to about 50 words in the G materials, but the ability to write a composition of about 50 words is something that everyone has once they become an adult. However, the ability to write a 50-word essay is different from the ability cultivated in the H-textbook. The reading comprehension skills acquired in this course will help you in your life after you have passed the university entrance exam.
If a child is preparing for junior high school entrance examinations, he or she will probably quit Kumon around grade 4. I think that most of them set their sights on the F materials, which are equivalent to the 6th grade. However, I would like them to go further and set their sights on the H materials.
Of course, this is not an easy task. However, the skills developed up to the G materials are skills that most people will eventually acquire. I think that it is the H materials that will make you feel happy that you did Kumon even afterwards.
In that sense, I would say that the H materials are a turning point.