Make the best of KUMON repetition!

By Sudha Chopra

We all know that repetition to achieve mastery is an integral part of KUMON. But how does an instructor know what needs to be repeated? Does everyone get the same repetition and is there a set recipe? Or is it random!!!

You may have had these questions as a part of your KUMON experience. Here is the scoop on how repetition is planned. Firstly let’s get some things out… The repetition is individualized to every student and is definitely is not a set recipe or random! The instructor assigns work based on the student’s performance on the past homework and classwork. If the accuracy and speed does not meet the KUMON standard, a repetition is assigned for those set of worksheets.

Students reviewing concepts to attain mastery at KUMON of Lexington Southeast

The entire goal of the exercise is to internalize the topic for the student. The student should know the topic so well, that it becomes second nature. To do this, KUMON establishes thresholds for accuracy and speed for each worksheet, and a student will meet those thresholds only if the topic has been assimilated.

But an instructor will not be able to do justice to repetition on their own even by following the above process and needs the help of the parent and student to make it work i.e., maximize progress with each repetition. The goal of each repetition is to improve upon the earlier performance and ultimately reach the Kumon thresholds or target accuracy/speed.

As a general rule of thumb, the target accuracy could be defined as “at least 2 worksheets with 100% score and no more than 2 sheets with a 70 or 69% score in a 10 page set”. The speed requirements, called standard completion time (SCT) are listed on the first page of every answer book

What a student can do:

Students most often look at repeat work as being boring, not motivating and therefore don’t put out their best performance which results in a score, that may not be better or even worse than the earlier attempt. The student who holds this paradigm will go through many repetitions without success and feel like they are spinning their wheels.

Understandably, this leads to negative emotions about repetition! To reverse the direction of this negative spiral, a student should remember that the goal of each repetition is to improve upon the earlier performance.

Some tricks of the trade which could help:
1) Previewing the work before getting started might help the student prepare themselves mentally and plan a strategy to make improvements on the accuracy or speed.

2) Reviewing examples and reading questions and passages more closely. Speed can be improved by assessing the amount of work/page and knowing how much time is allotted per page and pacing your work accordingly. 

However, a student should not despair if the attempt did not immediately result in achieving the target, especially if you are working above grade level. The important thing is that each attempt should be an improvement over the last one.

Make every repetition work for you and not become a wasted effort!

How Parents can help:

Its most natural for parents to worry that repetition might delay their child progress. On the contrary, moving a student forward when they are not ready is far more detrimental. You may save a few cycles now, but if the topic is not mastered, it will add many more cycles to the next level, in addition to leaving the student feeling unprepared in the higher levels.

Parents can make a huge difference in how students view repetition. Parents should look for the same incremental progress with each attempt and guide the student to set incremental goals. Parents that are in close contact with the instructor can help the instructor maximize progress for the student.

As parents, we tend to focus on the results, more so than the students! Remember that we are looking for incremental improvements (especially when the student is working above grade level).