Effective Literacy Website #1

Jessica Herry

ED638-Fall Intersession 2018

Dr. Rivera

IRA Newsletter Project: Literacy Website #1

            The Kumon Center (https://www.kumon.co.uk/blog/ways-to-develop-childrens-literacy-skills/) is an open website where teachers and parents can obtain information on the progress of a child’s literacy development and ways to develop children’s literacy skills. This website is very useful because it provides meaningful detail of some effective ways to improve students reading and writing skills.

            The Kumon English Program aims to develop each student's ability to read and understand a variety of texts, and to nurture a life-long habit of reading for education and enjoyment. The English program progresses from basic word and sentence building and culminates in critiquing advanced texts. Each student starts at their own, individually set, starting point which will be established during their free assessment.

            This Kumon website (https://www.kumon.co.uk/) offers both Math and English Programs, and more specifically, it also indicates the age group you are interested in. The Kumon English Program offers a video that shows how they help children through repeating and reciting, learning to read and write, sentence building, paragraph building, and summarization. The video also follows specific explanation of each skill.

            The Kumon Method of Learning was born from one father’s love for his child in 1954. Toru Kumon, a caring father and gifted high school math teacher, saw that his son Takeshi was not excelling in math at school. To help him improve he wrote out math worksheets for his son to complete daily. Toru Kumon believed that educators have a responsibility to foster a mindset of self-learning in children, so he created learning materials for Takeshi that encouraged him to work independently. The first UK Kumon study centre opened in the United Kingdom in 1983, followed by an affiliated company being established in 1990. By 1991, Kumon Education UK was established with the Kumon English Program (for native English speakers) arriving in 1997. Kumon is now the largest supplementary education provider in the UK and Ireland with more than 70,000 Kumon students learning at more than 630 study centers across the UK and Ireland. Kumon has continued its global expansion, with over 4 million students worldwide studying in more than 50 countries and regions around the world.

            This website is a very effective way I would recommend for any teacher. You can find different resources to help improve your teaching. It doesn’t matter what age group or grade level, you can always find useful and important information on this site.