Hard Work and Early Morning Routines Lead to Kumon Success

Even before the sun rose, and before her alarm clock would go off, Estefania would hear the click of the lamp’s light switch in her son’s room. That was when she knew he was starting his day with his Kumon work.

Maximo has been dedicated to that work for nearly eight years. Heading into his high school sophomore year in South Florida, he’s sporting a 4.83 GPA and already a Kumon reading completer.

But his educational career didn’t begin with instant success, Estefania says. It took a lot of hard work and dedication.

Finding the Kumon Method

In his early, pre-kindergarten years, Maximo attended a private school. But his mother was disappointed with the school’s academics and his progression through the levels of pre-kindergarten.

She eventually took him to Kumon, she says. “From there, it just took off.”

Maximo’s Kumon lessons started with basic addition and subtraction. With reading it was completing basic sentences and punctuation. At first, Maximo wasn’t really aware of what was going on. But then things began to change, and he noticed it.

“Quickly, I realized how important it was for my future success, and that it was already shining in my schoolwork and with everything that was going on,” he says. “And I just kept going and going.”

He quickly became a top performer.

“I kept going and going,” he says. “I kept on graduating (levels) and got the G by 4 Gold Star Award (achieving level G by grade 4). I became the ambassador of the centre, and later on, I won the Math-a-thon twice already and before that I got third place. So, it’s been a real success.”

During that time, Maximo also participated in two tennis leagues while juggling his studies. Although now that he’s in high school, he’s traded tennis for pickleball.

“It was a lot of hard work and consistency that I’ve been able to apply to it and my schoolwork,” he says.

High School and Beyond

During his middle school days, he started his Kumon work at 6:50 a.m. Now in high school, it’s more like 6 a.m. Building study habits and ensuring he had time for extracurricular activities after school.

His drive and determination have served him well into high school. As a student ambassador, Maximo represented the Kumon Doral Centre at Kumon’s 2024 North America Student Conference. 

He continues to take his role as a Kumon ambassador very seriously. He has also competed in Mu Alpha Theta competitions and Math Kumon competitions, and he recently submitted a Math Poem to the American Mathematical Society’s Math Poem competition. 

Now in high school, Maximo is part of the Mas Program, a program designed for the academically gifted and motivated students.

“My son always wanted to be in the most vigorous program,” Estefania says.

Heading into his sophomore year, he says, he is beginning to focus on college tests like the ACT and SAT with the aspiration of getting accepted to the University of Miami or Notre Dame to study finance or engineering. A career in sales is also of interest. But he hasn’t made up his mind yet.

“My biggest goal is to go to college and not have too much debt, because I feel like that can weigh on me in my future,” he says.

While he just finished Kumon’s reading program, he still has several levels of math ahead of him and looks forward to completing those.

“I’m very thankful to all my instructors for what they showed me and what they helped me to understand,” he says. “And I’m thankful for the achievements that I that I gained from it, and for how it’s helped me now in high school and with the basics of math support and reading.”

Estefania is proud of her son’s accomplishments and looks forward to seeing where the future takes him thanks to the help and guidance of Kumon.

“I’m not going to lie, I wish he was saying, ‘My mom was a great math teacher’,” she says. “But he gives the credit to Kumon.”