The Kumon Back-To-School Survey

Toronto, ON -A new Ipsos Reid survey conducted on behalf of Kumon Math and Reading Centres finds that children's homework habits vary by scholastic achievment.

Parents of children 7-14 years of age that attend public school and don't have learning disabilities/special education needs were asked whether they feel their child is ahead of grade level, at grade level, or behind grade level. Four in ten (39%) parents think their child is ahead of grade level, 53% think they're right at grade level, and 7% of parents think their child is behind grade level.

Some of the key differences between children believed to be above grade level and children thought to be behind grade level are as follows. Other survey findings are outlined on the proceeding pages...

Children who are ahead of their grade level are more likely to have a homework routine than those who are behind (88% vs. 59%). Moreover, children who perform well academically are more likely to ask for help with homework than those who perform poorly (68% vs. 42%).

Children who are behind their grade level are more likely than those children who are ahead of their grade level to have received help in Math (61% vs. 28%), Language Arts (57% vs. 17%), Science (20% vs. 9%) and Second Language (17% vs. 7%) courses. Children who are ahead of their grade are more likely to have not received help in any subject at all (58% vs. 16%).

Parents of children who are ahead of their grade level are more likely to say their child faces no distractions when doing his or her homework compared to parents of children who are behind their grade level (22% vs. 10%). The biggest distractions for children who are behind their grade level are television (21%) telephone calls (17% ) and siblings (17%).

Interestingly, children who are behind their grade level are more likely than those who are ahead of their grade level to have a TV in their bedroom. (50% vs. 33%). Children who are behind their grade level are also more likely to have videogames in their bedroom compared to those who are ahead of their grade level (36% vs. 24%).

Finally, when motivating their children do homework, parents of children who are behind their grade level are more likely than parents of children above grade level to remind their child of the long term benefits of doing homework (23% vs. 11%) or reward him or her with privileges (20% vs. 6%). On the other hand, parents of children who are ahead of their grade level are more likely than parents of children below grade level to say that their child is self-motivated (26% vs. 3%).

These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid/Kumon telephone survey conducted from August 17-29th 2005. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1000 Canadian parents who have children 7 to 14 years of age that attend public schools and do not have learning disabilities or special education needs was interviewed. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 1773.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had this entire population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population--parents of children ahead of the grade (n=395, +/-4.9%), right at grade level (n=531, +/-4.3%), behind grade level (n=73, +/-11.5%). For the survey parents were asked to reflect back on the past school year. These data were weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data.

Please open attached files to view full press release and detailed tables.

For more information on this news release, please contact:
Jennifer McLeod
Senior Research Manager
Ipsos-Reid
416.324.2900
[email protected]

Sandy Franco
Public Relations Manager
Kumon Math & Reading Centres
416.490.1434
[email protected]

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