Lee’s Profile
School Grade: Second year in University
Center: Kumon Sherwood Education Center (Hong Kong)
Subject:
Math – Completed in July, 2013 (equivalent to senior secondary school level)
Chinese – Completed in April, 2011 (equivalent to senior secondary school level)
English (ERP) – Completed in July, 2014 (equivalent to senior secondary school level)
Student Lee’s Kumon Learning Journey
The influence of Kumon on children still remains after completion of the study. This time we are going to share with you about Lee, who obtained excellent results and got admitted to Enrichment Stream in Theoretical Physics program at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He believes that the reason why he got excellent grades and is able to self-study under pressure at university was closely related to the study of Kumon in his childhood.
He sums up what he gained from Kumon as “Pi”
Lee summed up his learning result in Kumon as “Pi”, which is made up of four “P”s (Plan, Practice, Perfect, and Perseverance) and one “i” (Independence).
— Plan —
“In university, learning is completely autonomous or self-directed, we have to plan ourselves, manage our study. I acquired this planning skill during the discussion with the instructor about study volume and progress based on my situation in Kumon.”
— Practice & Perfect —
“Professors in university would not provide us any exercises, but from Kumon study, we realized that practice makes perfect; so we now can proactively do the exercises even when the teachers do not urge us. We could reinforce our knowledge through exercises.”
— Perseverance —
“University life is not as easy as people imagine. For me personally, there are at least three assignments a week. Perhaps you may think there are only three assignments, but each assignment takes at least three hours to complete, and some difficult parts may take more a few hours; besides that, there is a lot of extra reading. The time I spend on academic takes every day is not less than ten hours, it is indeed tough. However, I have learned to complete different levels step by step while I was learning Kumon, and I have already mastered “perseverance”, which trains me to persist and not give up easily.
— Independence —
“‘Independence’, means self-regulated and independent learning. In order to build self-learning ability, Kumon always encourages us to read the examples and think. If we make mistakes, we have to find out the mistakes in our answers without relying on others. Mastering this skill allows us to control our own learning progress so that we can learn more and expand our learning scope. Even after we enter into society, with self-learning ability, we can continue to study and expand our knowledge.
When I study in the university, I realized that I had some knowledge gap with other students, and the ‘independence’ that I learned in Kumon encourages me to read more extra-curricular books in my spare time, and even do study preview. With self-learning, I can shorten the distance with others and broaden my horizons.”
Lee has gained a variety of learning abilities in Kumon. But what did he gain from studying the three Kumon subjects specifically?
Math
“The mathematic problems in Kumon Math come in great variety. The program progresses from simple to difficult. Along with the examples, the program helps me to consolidate my foundation and helps me advance gradually. In the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) Math examination, the questions are diversified and complex, but the math problem-solving skills that I acquired in Kumon assist me to use the simplest and the most direct way to solve these problems.”
Chinese
“Besides mastering reading comprehension skills and learning different knowledge about classical Chinese, through reading different well-known classical articles, like “Dream of Red Chamber”(红楼梦), “Journey to the West” (西游记) and their review articles, I gained much knowledge about Chinese literature. This makes me understand classical Chinese articles more easily and grasp the purpose of the articles faster, and understand the authors’ philosophy and values during the HKDSE Chinese examination.”
English
“Through learning Kumon English, I was able to read a diversity of classic works and poetries of western literature, which makes me familiar with the expression and written format of the articles, and accumulate more vocabulary. Nowadays, HKDSE English reading comprehension sometimes requires students to answer questions based on the content of the English poems and literary works. The practice in Kumon allows me to understand those articles more quickly and more accurately.”
I believe that everyone can feel how much effort Lee has paid in the study journey from his conclusion. We wish him to complete his university study successfully, and we wish more Kumon students can study their ideal universities and achieve their dreams.
