Kumon Japanese has the potential to make Japanese a strong subject not only for junior high school entrance examinations, but also for the entire examination process, including university entrance examinations. However, there are some things that are required in order to benefit from it.
In this article, we will talk about the effects of Kumon Japanese and how far Kumon Japanese should be advanced in the junior high school entrance examinations.
Hopefully, you will have a life in the examinations without any difficulty at all in Japanese.
If you can enjoy the potential of Kumon Japanese to the fullest, you will be able to lead a life in which you have no difficulty at all in learning Japanese for entrance examinations. This is not only about junior high school entrance exams, but also about high school and university entrance exams.
In Kumon Japanese, most of the reading of modern Japanese is completed up to the I materials (equivalent to the third year of junior high school), and most of the high school materials deal with ancient and Chinese texts. In fact, Kumon only recommends books up to I material, and the last recommended book in I material is Tolstoy's War and Peace. It is the highest peak in terms of reading difficulty. Kumon probably thinks that students have at least the necessary skills for reading modern literature once they have completed the I materials.
And it is not only reading comprehension that is acquired at this stage. In Kumon, students do not just read passages, but also solve questions in the form of summaries and extracts, which are used in examinations. Kumon can help you develop not only the necessary reading comprehension skills, but also the ability to solve problems.
You can get points for basic questions such as those on the common university entrance examinations.
Kumon is particularly effective for exams that require fast solving of basic questions. The most effective results are probably seen in questions such as those in the common university entrance examinations.
I myself have progressed to the point where I have finished the Kumon Japanese I materials. As a Kumon student, I am at the "so-so" level, but as mentioned above, I have acquired a good foundation in reading modern Japanese.
Later, when I was in my second year of high school, there was an event in which the whole school year tried to solve the Centre Test (common first stage examination) once before the full-scale examination study started, and I got almost a perfect score in modern Japanese. I am ashamed to say that I did almost no home study at that time. I can say it was purely the power of Kumon Japanese.
If you can advance Kumon further, you can also learn to read ancient Chinese and Chinese literature, so we often see cases where students get near perfect scores from the start.
Although there are reading comprehension questions at a considerable level in the junior high school examination, if you can read at a university level, you will be able to cope with most of the questions. And with Kumon, it is possible to progress to high school material while still in primary schools. While still in primary schools, you can acquire the basic ability to not struggle with Japanese, including up to the university entrance examinations. Kumon Japanese has that much potential.
Finding Japanese easy for junior high school entrance exams goes much further than the F materials.
On the other hand, if the emphasis is on junior high school entrance examinations, one theory is to finish Kumon up to F materials (equivalent to grade 6) by grade 4 and then transfer to a junior high school entrance examination cram school. This is a strategy to give students more time to study for the entrance examinations by finishing the primary schools range before entering a cram school for junior high school entrance examinations.
This has a certain effect in arithmetic. Although Kumon does not deal with graphic problems in arithmetic, it is possible to develop basic calculation skills at Kumon. Kumon also helps to develop study habits, so there are certain advantages to doing this in the early grades.
However, in Kumon Japanese, this strategy has only a limited effect. This is because the level of Japanese required for the junior high school entrance examination is much higher than that of Kumon's F materials.
It is said that the standard amount of sentences for junior high school entrance examinations is 3,000 characters. However, in the Kumon Japanese F materials (equivalent to grade 6), the number of characters handled at one time is only a few hundred, so even if you finish Kumon Japanese at the end of the F materials, you will not be able to stand up to the Japanese for the junior high school entrance examination. It is not that it is meaningless, but it is not enough.
My impression from looking at the difficulty level of the texts is that the difficulty level of the problem texts of Nada Junior High School Japanese is about the level of GI materials, and the difficulty of the questions themselves is about the level of HI materials. Although separate measures may be necessary for vocabulary-related questions, if you want to be comfortable with Japanese for the junior high school entrance examination, I think that completing the H materials should be a rough guide.
It is not unusual for students to change schools if they cannot finish the H materials.
However, reaching the H materials is somewhat difficult in some areas. This is because the level of Kumon is such that if you do it for a few years, there are a fair number of people who move on to the next three grades.
If you are aware of the junior high school entrance exam, grade 4 is the time to change schools. If you have started Kumon in grade 1 or 2, one guideline for families who are aware of the junior high school entrance exam would be to complete the F material by the end of grade 3. However, to complete the H material, it is necessary to go two grades further.
Speaking of Kumon, it is in arithmetic that the results are most obvious. The things learned in junior high school and high school are not useful for junior high school entrance exams, so it is probably standard practice for students to transfer to a different school after completing the F materials. However, if this theory is applied to Japanese, there are some parts that do not work well. As a result, it is a common pattern for students to transfer to a different school halfway through and finish their studies without gaining the benefits of Kumon Japanese.
Key factors are duration, conversation and amount of reading
We have talked about the fact that F materials are not enough to obtain sufficient reading ability from Kumon for the junior high school entrance examination. So how can we get to the more advanced materials by the time it is time to change schools?
Start Kumon earlier
The progress of Kumon is in direct proportion to the length of time you have been doing it.
In Kumon Japanese, it is necessary to solve 400 printouts in order to progress through one school year's worth of material. If you want to progress from grade 1 (A material) to grade 2 (H material), that is 3,200 sheets. Moreover, each printout is solved not just once, but repeated two or three times.
Of course, progress may be fast or slow, but I think you can see that it takes time to finish this many printouts. On the other hand, Kumon materials progress step by step, so if you take your time, you can make some progress.
It is indeed too early for children under the age of two, but the option of starting before entering primary school is worth considering. The longer you stay with Kumon, the more likely you are to be able to move on to the next level.
Slightly delaying the time to change schools.
Although this is not a desirable option, there is also the idea of extending the time of transferring to a different school.
The most common time to transfer to a junior high school preparatory school is at grade 4, but not everyone necessarily enters the school at grade 4. Some enthusiastic families start in the lower grades, while others start in grade 5 or 6 for various reasons.
It is also true that monthly fees are cheaper at Kumon. If you feel that you are close to achieving your goals with Kumon, you may want to consider changing schools after you have reached the end of your studies.
Work on improving reading comprehension outside of Kumon
Kumon Japanese is an effective means of improving Japanese language skills, but it is not the only means. There are two other means that are particularly effective. These are conversations with parents and reading.
It is said in many places that conversation with parents is related to Japanese language skills. If you can have adult-oriented conversations about the news or books, rather than conversations tailored to the child's side of the conversation, the child's thinking ability will quickly improve. It's not just about being able to have a conversation at a high intellectual level, but also because it's great for the child to be able to have an equal conversation with his or her parents. A child's willingness to actively grow will, more than anything else, develop their abilities, and conversations with adults will directly lead to the growth of their thinking skills.
Another is reading. No test, no matter how difficult the reading comprehension question, is longer than a paperback book. With reading, children can choose books in areas that interest them, and with stories, the pleasure is in reading from beginning to end. Being able to read through a book is the best way to improve their Japanese language skills, and if they become book lovers, they will read more than 100 books a year. Naturally, the amount of text read in Kumon and junior high school entrance examination cram schools is different by orders of magnitude. Even if it is difficult to see the connection with the score, there is nothing that will improve your Japanese language skills more than this.
Kumon Japanese is the final way to improve your Japanese language skills.
Kumon Japanese has the potential to help you acquire comprehensive Japanese language skills, not only for the junior high school entrance examinations, but also for university entrance examinations. This is because, whereas in arithmetic, there are few connections between units (for example, calculus, vectors and probability are almost independent of each other), in Japanese, if you can read texts at the university entrance examination level, it is unlikely that you cannot read texts at the elementary and junior high school level.
So the most effective way to use Kumon Japanese is to finish the final material as early as possible. If you are thinking only of taking the junior high school entrance examination, then Japanese as a Foreign Language is one of the guiding principles.
If you want to improve the progress of Kumon, you should either extend the period of time you continue with Kumon or work on improving your child's Japanese outside of Kumon. Conversation with parents and reading are effective ways of doing this.
Maths is often the focus of attention in Kumon, but the further you go, the more you will see the benefits of Japanese and English. Rather than thinking about how far is enough, let's work with the feeling that the further they progress, the greater the benefits.