Talented Reya, proudly becomes Corstorphine’s first Kumon English Completer

14-year-old Reya has recently completed the entire Kumon English Programme and is the very first ever English Completer at the Kumon Corstorphine Study Centre! Her Instructor Kanika, her parents and most importantly, Reya simply couldn’t be prouder. Although she joined the Edinburgh-based centre in 2018, Reya originally started her Kumon journey at the age of seven in South Africa and the family moved to the UK in 2017, when Reya was 11.

Over time Reya has become a confident, independent learner who has developed a love for learning. We caught up with Reya’s father, Dr Ayaskant and her mother Rekha to find out more about what prompted them to enrol their daughter at Kumon.

“We researched Kumon and more so, the benefits of Kumon study before enrolling Reya onto the programme. The concept of daily practice, only 15-20 minutes a day, which we felt is essential for a student, fascinated us and during that time our focus was to get the foundations set through the daily practice.

Since enrolling Reya at Kumon we have seen a significant improvement in her English ability and school work, and also some behavioural changes. Because the programme is well-organised and paced, it helps students like Reya to work on fairly complex comprehension, analyse the problem and solve it without the realisation that it is complex. We’ve also noticed that since Reya has joined Kumon, many of our acquaintances enrolled their children at Kumon as well!”

It’s a delight to hear more about Reya’s Kumon journey in her own words. She recalls,

“When I first joined Kumon, my reading and writing abilities were limited; I was able to read and write simple sentences and poems with simple words. Since we spoke Hindi and Oriya (both Indian languages) at home, my use of the English language was limited at the time. I gradually started to get more exposure to writing paragraphs and improving my English grammar at school. One of my earliest memories of Kumon was getting my homework and sitting with the whole family at the dinner table; my sister and I would both do our Kumon together. It has become a ritual to sit and do our Kumon everyday together as a family.

As I progressed to higher level work, like reading extracts from stories and answering questions on them, I developed a curiosity to understand and complete reading the whole book for myself. This habit has led me to become an avid reader of books. I really enjoy my classes, as I don’t struggle to understand concepts.”

As well as nurturing her love of reading, studying Kumon helped Reya improve her spelling ability and understand the format of a wide variety of different texts, such as playscripts, poems, stories and non-fiction.

She told us, “Through studying different texts, Kumon helped me increase my vocabulary immensely and helped me structure my sentences more appropriately.

The Kumon Maths and English Study Programmes place great emphasis on developing the key study skills and life skills required to help students like Reya become confident, independent self-learners. Over time, the positive effects of Kumon have enabled Reya to develop her English ability at school and her other subjects too.

At Kumon, Instructors guide their students through work that is set at just the right level for them, keeping them engaged and making progress. They support and encourage students to work out answers by themselves, helping them to become self-sufficient, successful learners for the future. Reya says, “All my Instructors - Celeste Schepers at the Sunninghill Study Centre, Sarti Bjorkman at the Southdowns Study Centre in South Africa, and most recently Kanika Patterson at the Corstorphine study centre in the UK - have always supported me every step of the way and encouraged me to try and finish each of my levels. Finally, I can proudly say, that I have finished all the levels!  I’m certain the knowledge and skills I have learned from Kumon will not only support me in my future education but in my career as well.”

Reya’s parents added, “The relationship Reya had with all her Instructors has been fantastic; they have been very supportive and motivated her at times to keep going and reach the next level.” On the whole, we have witnessed Reya flourish with Kumon. The programme is a long-term investment used to build one’s maths and English abilities for the long run.

Kumon has been a routine in our life, and we are thankful for discovering it and enrolling Reya in the programme. We hope that Reya continues to utilise the academic knowledge and life skills gained from Kumon for all her future endeavours.”

Well done, Reya!