Why does Kumon time my child as they complete worksheets?

At Kumon, we know that, when children work efficiently and at speed, it develops the thoroughness and care with which they work because their brain is fully functioning. We aim for every child to experience how different it feels when they learn to use their brains more fully.

As part of each child’s skills development, we encourage students to learn how to shut out distractions around them, develop the ability to focus on their work and get into their studies quickly. When we’re immersed in completing a task and absorbed by our studies, this is known as ‘flow state’ and this is exactly the experience we want to bring about for our students.  

Lengthen their concentration span.
In a traditional school classroom setting there is a lot of passive listening time required of children, but in their Kumon study time. we want to lengthen the child’s span of concentration so that they can use their brain for longer and become better able to self-learn any materials they are presented with. We build up gradually and aim for 30 minutes of concentrated study per subject, per day.

Mastery and recall
You child’s Kumon Instructor will ensure students have fully mastered each topic with the worksheets before they move on to the next. Being able to read a passage, process the information within and answer a comprehension question within a certain timeframe is the perfect way for a student to demonstrate their reading comprehension and advanced language skills. Equally, knowing the answer to an addition sum is one thing, but being able to recall all your number bonds at speed is quite another.

By working at speed, on both familiar work and new work, children become better equipped to think and learn more. They also improve their ability to judge their own understanding for themselves.  

Kumon’s Standard Completion Time (SCT) is one of the ways the Instructor will be able to tell if a student needs to repeat worksheets. They assess whether a student is able to maintain concentration on their work, and to see if they can answer the questions with the fluency that Kumon helps them to develop. Our experience with the millions of students across the world who are studying the Kumon programmes has shown that students who study material that is just right for them are able to complete these worksheets within the SCT of each worksheet level or set.

This is why timing the worksheets is a vital tool for the Instructor to ensure that your child is studying the best material for their level. An Instructor takes into account the shifts in completion times from one topic to the next, and even within the same topic sets, to gauge your child’s development through their study and make sure they have fully mastered the material before they move on to the next topic or level.

Timing how long it takes a student to finish a worksheet is one of the ways we can make sure your child fully understands each topic they study and ensure they are progressing at a pace that is right for them.