Kumon India & Sri Lanka - Potential 2022 Issue 2

Dear Readers, Hope you are having a great year.

In this edition, we are proud to showcase the inspiring story of Kubherane Gracen Mayooran, who shares his Kumon experience and tells us how Kumon made him determined and focussed. He talks about his learning journey and describes the ways in which Kumon has helped him unlock his potential and made him a champion.

Another motivational story is of Aashka Agarwal, who is the Youngest Completer in Kumon India Sri Lanka. She stresses on the importance of time management and being an independent learner which contributed largely to her overall development.

In the Local News section, we have highlighted how our Kumon brings about positive changes in children. The article throws light on the joy of learning at Kumon & witnessing the positive changes in children.

We look forward to delighting you in our upcoming issues with more inspiring stories of children who help us further believe in their unlimited potential.

Happy Reading!

Marketing & PR Team – Kumon India & Sri Lanka

life, my dream

With a hope to build good study habits and to improve the attitude towards learning, Kubherane Gracen Mayooran decided to enrol in Kumon. “Kumon helped me level up my English Language skills. My grammar, reading and writing skills largely improved compared to how it was before,” says Kubherane.

Being an under 12 national player of tennis and an active athlete, Kubherane is currently practicing for his next tournament in Nepal. He has won the Negombo tournament and the Carlton Open Tournament where he grabbed the semi-finalist position. Being a long-standing student of Kumon, he stresses on how Kumon has moulded him into who he is today, securing Rank 2 in the Sri Lankan Tennis Association.

‘’I have learned to juggle with time management and face all challenges with an inspired mind-set. Starting to play since the age of 7 and simultaneously enroling at Kumon has been a secret ingredient of success for me as it helped me become a self-disciplined individual with a daily routine,” he shares. He also strongly believes that Kumon has helped him become an avid reader and attempt worksheets on his own.

‘’Thanks to Kumon, I believe that anything is possible! It has blessed me with a never give up attitude now which has helped me become a champion!” says an elated Kubherane.

As Kubherane is a future Kumon English Completer, he gives full credit to Kumon for bringing out his potential in focusing on studies as well as juggling national tournaments worldwide at the same time. He shares that even during the lockdown, he made maximum use of his free time to complete English worksheets online. This helped him to stay motivated to complete the levels faster. He shares that perseverance and patience has made a difference to his learning curve. With excellent scores and praises from his Instructor, he now gets the highest grades in English and math than all other subjects only due to his dedicated and regular Kumon learning.

Kubherane emphasises on the importance of daily study and shares that he ensures to complete at least one worksheet every day and enjoys it as he learns something new which he finds quite interesting. His mother persistently tells him to never leave anything once started midway, so he makes sure to continue going. The support and understanding of his family has provided Kubherane with an added motivation to accomplish his goal of becoming a Kumon English Completer. With his limitless potential coupled with excellent guidance from Instructors, Kubherane has been achieving great heights in learning. His target is to soon become a Kumon Completer and with this positive spirit, he certainly will set an example for other students that anything is achievable with the Kumon Method.

“To be successful in life, we need to dream and work hard with dedication and consistency.” Such is the belief of Aashka Agarwal, our youngest Kumon English Completer who is just 7. Studying beyond school grade level in Kumon helped her finish studies before time and gave her enough time to concentrate on other activities. Needless to say, Kumon’s Journey has built these realizations in Aashka at a very young age.

In the words of her parents, “Aashka understood the concept of time management while doing Kumon. It was overall an exceptional journey which had many milestones. Milestones which were so tough that it would break confidence in any adult too, at some point. But Aashka kept going. She is one of the many students who faced difficulties during the Kumon journey, but what makes her shine is her perseverance and courage to dream and reach her goals.”

Would you like to share your Kumon Journey with us. How was your overall experience?

I got enroled in the Kumon English Programme when I was 2 years old. Kumon’s Journey was not less than a roller coaster ride, where one day I would be super excited to do the worksheets and get a lot of praise from the Instructors, the next day I would get stuck and cry for not being able to understand anything. But with the help and support of my parents and Kumon Instructors, I realised that the mind set with which I was doing the worksheet made all the difference. The journey was definitely not easy but it was worth it.

What are your future goals and how can Kumon help you achieve them?

I feel Kumon has taught me not just English but also how to set my goals and persevere to achieve them along with developing an attitude of never giving up. Now that I have completed the English Programme, I wish to finish the Maths Programme too.

Kumon’s Recommended Reading books helped me develop an enormous interest in reading novels at a very young age. It has given me a lot of confidence in writing stories. I plan to become an author and publish my book of stories soon.

A piece of advice for other Kumon students that you want to share.

Managing time and establishing daily study habits is the most important discipline we need to inculcate. My Instructor asked me to write my time table and I soon realised that achieving daily study habits was not that difficult. All I needed to do was to take the worksheet at a particular time and start doing it. Fixing a daily Kumon Time and dedicating time in doing Kumon Sheets is the most important step to be a Kumon Completer.

What inspired you to complete the programme?

Inspired by Siddhan being the Youngest Kumon Completer while he was in Grade 2 in 2020, I told to myself “I want to be the next Youngest Kumon Completer too and finish Kumon while I was in Grade 1” and started discussing with my Instructors. When they said that it was difficult but possible, I was excited. Luckily the lockdown happened and there was nothing much to do so I decided to utilise this time to the fullest and finished Kumon.

A tip/suggestion you would like to share that helped you in your journey of becoming a Completer?

“The fundamental level of success is to do the hard things first - if you go for the feared things first, then the rest of the day is easy.” This is something I have believed in. With the guidance from my Kumon Instructor, I very soon realised that this is the only way I can achieve anything. My target was to get up in the morning and finish doing my Kumon sheets first. It was magical as I was able to do more Kumon Sheets by spending less time in the morning as I was fresh and less distracted.

As per her parents, “Kumon Instructors always focused on nurturing Aashka as an independent learner with the “Right Study Approach”. They made sure to focus on minutest of the details like her sitting posture, whether she pointed and read aloud, if she underlined the words she didn’t know and referred to the dictionary etc. There were days when she would get up at 6:00 am and finished doing her Kumon sheets for the day. Kumon has played a very important role in shaping her personality and helped her not only to develop academically but also holistically. As parents we were there to support her and encourage her throughout her life and always want her to be happy and achieve whatever she wishes for.”

Making positive changes in our children by nurturing skills for a lifetime

As parents and their children walk through the doors of the Kumon Centres for the Parents’ Orientation and diagnostics assessments, they would have expected to receive some help in academic performance. What some parents didn’t expect, is the life skills that Kumon study develops. Not only does Kumon develop mathematical, reading and writing skills, Kumon also nurtures essential work and study skills that will help the students beyond the figurative confines of Kumon.

These are some of the life skills that Kumon cultivates in our students – concentration, discipline, time management, confidence and independent learning.

CONCENTRATION

Being able to concentrate for a period of time is a vital skill that our children need to succeed in school. But in this digital era, smartphones, social media and the internet present ample distractions to take our children’s mind off their task at hand.

Kumon aims for our children to finished their assigned worksheets in 1 sitting. After finishing a page, our children are taught to flip to the reverse side right away, and continue with the worksheet. As time go by, our children gradually develop the focus and concentration to benefit them in their studies, even outside of Kumon.

DISCIPLINE

Be it in school or at work in future, our children need the discipline and time management skills to sit down and get started with tasks or homework that needs to be completed, instead of giving in to distractions and procrastinating.

In general, our children visit our Kumon Centres twice a week and Instructors assign worksheets as homework for the other five days. Children have to be disciplined enough to arrange to do their Kumon homework, besides having to deal with school’s homework and other extra or co-curricular activities.

SELF-LEARNING

As you might probably know, Kumon Instructors do not teach. Instead, Kumon nurtures our children into self-learners, by encouraging children to answer the questions without asking for the answer.

Kumon worksheets are designed to facilitate self-learning. Explanations and examples are included in the introductory exercises with new learning foci. Our children work through the worksheets in small, incremental steps from easy to more challenging questions, under the watchful eye of our Kumon Instructors.

When children need help, they are not immediately given the answer or taught how to answer the questions. Instead, Instructors guide the students with appropriate hints and questions to nudge them in the right direction, but students will have to solve the problems on their own.

Through answering the questions on their own, our children gain confidence and motivation to progress further.

As parents and working adults, we would realise how these skills are still essential and much sought after in our professional environment. Indeed, these skills transcends the boundaries of Kumon, and will benefit our children in their studies as well as their working life in future.

CONFIDENCE

Confident students will be enthusiastic learners, and pave the way to academic success. When our children start with Kumon, our Instructors will assign a level that children can attain a perfect score with ease, based on the diagnostic assessments.

There might be occasions when Instructors get our children to repeat certain worksheets. The repetitions are meant to build a firm understanding of the current learning focus or concept, before moving on to a new one. Having a good foundation helps our children to feel confident when approaching a new learning focus.

When students are learning materials that are too easy, they feel bored, but when the learning materials gets too difficult, they lose the motivation to carry on. Kumon’s concept of “just-right” level is a sweet spot at which the worksheets is neither too easy, nor too difficult, but rather at a level that is able to challenge out children sufficiently to keep them motivated. As our children overcomes these little challenges, their confidence grow.

Instructors will also praise our children appropriately, in recognition of their little achievements, to motivate them. Some of these achievements could be, completing a set number of worksheets in one sitting for the first time, achieving a good score for a new learning focus, or completing a set of worksheets within the prescribed Standard Completion Time etc. This helps to feel motivated to progress further.

Getting a perfect score from the get-go, then having a solid understanding of the current concept before moving to a new concept at their “just-right” level and earning praises from our Instructors to celebrating little achievements help our children’s confidence soar.

TIME MANAGEMENT

Besides having the discipline, children will also need to manage their time in order to grapple with the other commitments from school and other extra or co-curricular activities. With time, they will learn to manage their time – a skill that will serve them well in workplace setting.

The Kumon Instructor assigns worksheets that are “just-right” for our children, which are essentially levels at which our children can experience a sense of accomplishment and progress without being taught explicitly. When our children are able to learn by themselves without being taught, they become more confident of their abilities.

As children walk through the doors of our Kumon Centres around the region, there have been some positive impact on them. Let’s read on and find out how our Instructors have helped them, and what are some of the positive changes they’ve seen.

Instructors’ Quotes

Femidah Wahid Kumon India & Sri Lanka

“ “

During these trying times, we must encourage our children to realise the importance of taking small steps and doing little things in great ways; for they are the future- who would fill the world with sunshine and I believe will turn things around for a better tomorrow! The best gift we can inculcate in them is responsibility and independence & as our founder quotes, “There is a limit to how much one can teach, but there is no limit to how much one can advance through self-learning.

I believe every child has potential. From the past 17 years as Kumon instructor, I’ve emphasized on developing students’ thinking, dexterity, and mind through individualized instruction. When they are ready in all three aspects, they will then fully gain benefits from Kumon and study Kumon with happiness. Furthermore, their parents should acknowledge and take pride in their children’s abilities along with me.

As the ability to learn independently is an essential habit for school and life, the Kumon Mathematics and English programmes develop self-learning skills and confidence in students. Kumon students use the examples in the worksheets to self-learn their way through difficult problems. Their Kumon Instructors provide individualised study plans and guidance for the students to make smooth progress at a comfortable pace. I believe it is the core of the Kumon Method that allows students to continuously experience the joy of self-learning in real life and to be proactive and confident in everything they do. As a Kumon Instructor, I always feel grateful and proud to see students grow into well-rounded individuals who excel academically and in life.

Students shall master the fundamentals of a subject in order to study beyond their grade level. Students with positive attitude always have a brighter chance to learn more. They are always curious as to what’s coming next once they’re done with one level. Kumon daily worksheet helps to develop positive attitude such as self-discipline which will help them to learn about responsibility at a very young age. Self-discipline is a long term value that will feed one’s focus. Focus breeds punctuality, dependability and productiveness. Students often feel motivated when they can finally do the learning focus that they can’t do before. It increases their confidence and develop their interest in studying.

Satrirat Jinwan Danielle Young Kumon Australia and New Zealand

Nurul Dini binti Omar Kumon Malaysia

Kumon Thailand

Discover the Joy of Learning at Kumon

“What we aim for is not just to improve students’ school grades by simply developing their abilities in maths, English or Japanese, but for students to attain the mindset required for self-learning, and to acquire enough self-learning experience so that it becomes a habit. This is the true value of the Kumon Method. We must allow children to experience the joy of self-learning by themselves even after going out into the real world, and grow up into people who are proactive in everything they do.”

(Yamabiko 121,1990)

Kumon is all about regular practice. Mr. Toru Kumon explained that practice integrates students’ knowledge which helps in increasing their confidence. This also leads to many small improvements, such as sitting still, concentrating on worksheets for longer periods of time, timed study and moving to the next worksheet swiftly after completing the current one. After taking the challenge of studying new materials, students improve their concentration, develop perseverance, learn to take on new challenges and gain a positive sense of self. They began to believe in themselves that if they give it a try, they can do it. These small changes become noticeable once the child joins Kumon. It is very important to have the power of observation to discover the positive changes in a child. One should always look for specific signs of progress and praise the child. Timely praise and encouragement will help the child develop confidence and believe in his/her own ability.

Kumon Instructors also help children get an insight into their learnings which enable them to reflect on what actually went wrong. By discovering each student’s level of academic ability and constantly providing students with small-step individualised worksheets that are suitable to their ability levels, Instructors ensure that students always experience a sense of achievement in their daily study which gives them a joy of learning. By observing the learning patterns, Instructors become aware of the changes and improvements in students. So it is of much importance that in order to understand the positive changes in children, their development stages should be well understood.

things you can do to build confidence in your children 5 5

Assigning chores

Getting your children to help out with age-appropriate household chores can help them feel empowered and being part of the family. Such chores can be as simple as throwing their own diapers, or helping with a pet or younger sibling.

Teaching new skills

Learning new skills could be a motivating confidence booster when the children finds out they can do things that they weren’t able to do before. It could be dribbling a ball, watering plants, or simple crafts.

Positive talk daily

When learning new skills, they don’t always succeed. Let them know that it is okay to not succeed immediately; even Michael Jordan had failed in basketball (he still holds the infamous record of being the worst performer in the NBA three-point contest, having scored five three-pointers out of 30 attempts).

Use the word “yet” to encourage your children. Instead of “I cannot ride a bicycle”, tell them that “he/she just can’t ride a bicycle yet”. Using the word “yet” turns negativity into potential.

Create a family compliment tree

Draw a tree (or use a decal) on a flat wall, then use sticky notes to write a compliment and stick on the tree when someone has done something well (use a different colour for each family member). This helps your children to feel that their good behaviour or good deeds have been acknowledged and spur them on to earn more compliments. If a tree is not feasible, use a compliment jar as an alternative.

Like chores, making decisions help children feel empowered and gives them a sense of belonging. Start by letting them make age-appropriate choices like what to eat, where to go on an outing, what to wear etc.

Let them make decisions

JOIN US AS A

Due to the interest and demand in India and Sri Lanka, we are expanding our footprint by seeking passionate individuals to join us a franchise Instructor.

As Kumon parents, you have worked through the programme with your child. We believe no one knows the benefits of the Kumon Method better than you. If you possess a passion to work with children and desire to become an educator within your community, join us as a franchise Instructor to transform a child’s life through education.

Register your interest at http://in.kumonglobal.com today! For more information, contact us at franchise@kumon.co.in