Kumon Japanese and repetition Reading comprehension skills are also acquired by building on the basics

2023-05-23

Japanese (language)

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Japanese should not be regarded as a special subject. Japanese, like other subjects, is a subject that can be developed by building on the basics. There is no doubt that repetitive practice is important to consolidate the basics. It is just that the scope of the fundamentals is quite wide, and because the fundamentals can also be acquired outside of reference books and classroom study, they tend to be given special treatment.

Repetition allows you to acquire a wide range of basics, from basic grammar to abstract ideas that form the basis for understanding difficult concepts. In this article, the meaning of repetition in Kumon Japanese will be explained.

It is important to keep basic grammar under control in Japanese.

There are many aspects to reading comprehension, but there are some things that must be suppressed first. Japanese language also has vocabulary and grammar, and it is impossible to interpret a sentence correctly without learning the basic parts.

When studying English, the first thing that comes to mind is learning vocabulary and grammar. This is because if you don't know these, you won't understand what is written in long sentences. In the same way, you cannot read long sentences in Japanese if you do not understand the basic parts of the language. Some people think that because it is their mother tongue, they will naturally acquire the language, but this only means that they will naturally have the opportunity to learn it, not that they will acquire it without learning it.

Kumon prepares teaching materials step by step, starting with reading aloud words such as 'apple' and 'hikouki'. Kumon does not assume that students can read grade-appropriate material just because it is in Japanese, but allows them to acquire basic Japanese language skills.

There is no doubt that repeated practice is effective in acquiring these basic elements.

Reading comprehension can also be acquired through the accumulation of basic ideas

However, when it comes to reading comprehension, some people think that it is acquired through something special and not through the accumulation of basic skills. It is easy to assume that reading comprehension is based on ambiguous things such as groundwork, sense or thinking skills.

However, reading comprehension is also something that can be acquired through the accumulation of fundamentals.

In Descartes' Introduction to Method, there is the famous phrase 'I think, therefore I am'. In order to get an accurate picture of the world, you want to start your reasoning from one unquestionable fact. Then everything you see, hear and feel may be wrong. Misseen and misheard things are frequent. When you doubt everything you feel, the only thing you can be sure of is your thoughts, which doubt everything. Because thoughts exist, I am what I am. The phrase generally means this.

It is a very clear and straightforward idea in philosophical discussions, but it is an abstract idea, so it would be quite difficult for, say, a primary school child to understand it. So where is the difference between understanding this idea and not?

First, you have to know what the words 'therefore' and 'I' mean. Secondly, you have to think that you should start with certain facts. If you have studied the three-stage argument, you have experienced that if you start with the wrong facts, you will come to a terrible conclusion.

The fact that what you feel might be wrong might be easier to understand sensibly if you have done riddles or illusion problems that use assumptions. If you read shounen manga, you will see people who have the ability to deceive the senses rather frequently. Or if you have played sports, you may have experienced that a shot may or may not go in, even though you are playing with the same senses. With this grounding, you can deal with the counter-intuitive idea that "what you see now may not be true".

Abstract ideas are also born from the accumulation of history. Even seemingly difficult ideas are born from the accumulation of individual theories.

It is also important when understanding a text that you are reading for the first time, whether from a book or not, how much you know about the theories underlying the premises. Kumon helps you acquire the prerequisite knowledge through repetition.

Repetition, however, is difficult to memorise in its entirety.

So far, we have talked about how many parts of Japanese language skills can also be acquired through repetition. However, some people may still think that memorising the answers to the questions is meaningless, as they will not read the text.

However, it is difficult to memorise the Kumon Japanese answers, no matter how many times you repeat them. This is because when you repeat Kumon printouts, you are often repeating a range of 30 - 50 pages. Of course, you think "I have read this sentence before", but still it would be very difficult to memorise the answers to 30 previous printouts.

Reading is something you deepen by doing it over and over again.

Even if you don't memorise the whole text, you may wonder whether there is any point in reading a text that you have already read once and then reading it again. The question is whether re-reading a text that you know the main idea of will not give you the reading comprehension skills to read and understand a text that you have never seen before. I would like to assert this as well. A text is not something that you read once and that is the end of it; it is something that you have to read over and over again to get a great meaning out of it.

First of all, no one can read a difficult book or article in one sitting and understand it all. This is because what is written in a book is not an absolute fact that exists in isolation, but is the result of the accumulation of various discussions that have taken place over the years. The true meaning of the arguments in a book cannot be deciphered without reading not only the book in isolation but also the references. Moreover, what is written in a book is "the most likely correct thing at the moment", and it is not uncommon to find mistakes in the future. In the case of articles, the text is published at a more uncertain stage, so it is necessary to read the text critically and not just understand what is written.

To put it more simply, some people say that even if you read the same book, you feel differently depending on the timing. A good-looking guy in a shoujo manga that you thought was cool when you were in junior high school, when you look back on it as an adult, you might think, "Isn't it bad for a guy to mess with a high school student even though he's a working adult?" So your view changes like that. Parts that you skipped or didn't understand the first time you saw the manga can come into view by reading it repeatedly. The time available for repetition in Kumon is a few days to a few weeks, but even so, reading a text again after allowing some time and understanding the outline gives the child a completely different experience.

If they're learning ahead of time, we can follow up with vocabulary.

We have explained that vocabulary, grammar and reading comprehension are all acquired through repetition, and that repetition in Kumon Japanese is well worth it. Many people tend to regard Japanese as a special subject because it is difficult to study, but the basics of study remain the same. You can reach great heights by building on the basics.

One thing to note is that the further ahead you are in your studies, the more follow-up on vocabulary you should include. Even in Kumon, students learn enough kanji to help with reading comprehension, but there is also vocabulary that is not explicitly studied, such as phrases and slang. If you don't know what a word means, reading comprehension will be difficult. This may be a part of life that they would normally be able to understand, but this is not the case if they are learning ahead of time. This is an area where parents should actively follow up.

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