Kumon is the world’s largest after-school enrichment program. We have math and reading curriculums that start with preschool material for kids who enroll as young as age three, and advance all the way to the end of high school.

Kumon has two sides: the academic learning side and the side where we teach students how to self-learn, gain confidence and become independent thinkers. We combine advancing their math and reading skills with teaching them how to become even better students. How to put in effort. How to learn from failure. How to evaluate and be analytical when they’re solving a problem and find a mistake. How not to erase the whole answer but go back and find exactly where the mistake occurred.

Over time, many of our students become very confident as they work on material years beyond their grade level. They often find themselves doing school homework much faster and with better results. And many are able to qualify for advanced classes in high school that help with their future college education.

In the Kumon Program, students learn through daily practice of about 30 minutes per subject per day. Two days a week they complete assignments at their Kumon Center, and the other days they do them at home, or wherever life takes them. When you first enroll your children, we’ll have them complete a placement test that identifies the most appropriate starting level for them. This has nothing to do with their age or grade in school; it’s about the skills they’ve mastered to date. Based on their starting level, they’ll work on daily assignments through what we call a self-learning approach. As they’re working on their assignments, we’re also assessing whether they’ve mastered each concept by looking at their speed and accuracy. If they’ve mastered it, great! They advance to the next level. If they haven’t, we have them go back to relearn those concepts.

The answer is very simple. In Kumon, we go back to the root of the problem, while tutors most often help with an immediate need. As an example, assume your children are struggling with fractions. A tutor may help them advance past the immediate struggle. The Kumon Program, on the other hand, recognizes that their struggle likely stems from having missed another portion of fundamental learning, possibly subtraction or addition. So the Kumon Program allows them to go back, helping them master the fundamentals before moving on. Through self-learning, they learn to walk on their own, not to depend on someone to hold their hand along the way. Because we all want our children to become independent, confident learners.

To understand self-learning, it’s important to first understand what we’re all familiar with, which is traditional learning. In the classroom environment, your children are often passive learners. They may be sitting in class, but are they really paying attention? Are they fully engaged or daydreaming in space? So whatever the teacher is teaching, there’s no guarantee it has been fully grasped.

Conversely, self-learning in Kumon keeps your children actively engaged. They learn by studying examples and then are able to do the work on their own, as opposed to a teacher—or a tutor—sitting there and explaining how to solve the problem. They’re learning by doing, not by watching, and they’re relying on themselves instead of on what the teacher knows.

The real value of Kumon, and what sets us apart from other learning programs and tutors, is the impact our unique method makes on your child’s success throughout school, and beyond. This is true regardless of whether a student is a bit behind when starting Kumon or has already been earning A’s. Parents also find that year-round Kumon Instruction eliminates the need to ever hire a tutor again. That’s because our unique approach starts by closing the gaps in fundamental learning that so often lead to struggles in later years.

A wonderful difference between the Kumon curriculum and the school curriculum is that your children advance based on their abilities. In school, your children are limited—regardless of what knowledge they have, if they are in third grade, they’ll study third-grade material. In Kumon, they have the freedom to go beyond. They don’t progress based on their age or grade but based on what they know. That’s why so many Kumon children are studying material one, two, three or more years ahead of their grade level.