The Lessons of KUMON

KUMON was founded by Toru Kumon, a Japanese high school math teacher who developed study materials for his own struggling son.  New students take a free placement test, get started at a skill level below their current abilities, and move up in small increments.  In order for students to advance, they must achieve a perfect score on each packet within a set amount of time.

The idea is that a child who demonstrates both speed and accuracy shows full mastery of the material.  If this sounds like a high bar, that's the point!  A perfect score on a timed test not only demonstrates mastery; it also gives the child the confidence that goes with being an A+ student.

"Kumon helps with the fundamentals of reading and math, which kids just don't learn today," explains Mark Bastille, the father of 2 Seattle public school elementary students who also attend the University Village KUMON Math & Reading Center. "Multiplication tables up to 9-like I did as a kid."

Gloria Payne's twins are enrolled in a local private school for highly-capable students, but she takes them to the University Village KUMON center, as well.  "Who doesn't benefit from repetition?" she asks.  "Through the repetition you get to see what it is they don't understand.  This is old-school.  I was taught that you do something a whole bunch of times and you get it."  She is impressed with how  UVillage KUMON charts her children's progress through the material, measuring how many errors they make and how long it takes to finish an assignment.  "They have a mathematical model that tells them whether a child has a good grasp of the material, and they don't move them ahead until they reach it.  In most places, they don't do anything like that."

KUMON stresses an old-fashioned aphorism: "Practice makes perfect."  Students must practice their lessons for about 10-15 minutes every day by completing worksheets at home.  They visit the UVillage KUMON center once or twice a week, year-round.  At UVillage KUMON, many parents have enrolled their children for the entire curriculum, which starts in preschool and lasts through high school.

Some people would deride KUMON as "rote learning," but KUMON parents disagree.  They see the opportunity for their children to master the fundamentals of math and reading as the "missing piece" in both the public and private schools in the Seattle area, and KUMON as the perfect complement to the school math curriculum.