A pencil carefully designed to perfectly fit into the little hands of early learners
The Kumon Children’s Pencil 6B first went on sale in 1980. At that time Kumon began developing worksheets to improve pencil control skills for early learners. We discovered that young children who are not yet used to holding a pencil tend to grip a regular thin pencil too tightly. As a result their little hands tire quickly. Therefore, we decided to make a pencil that would be just right for the hands of early learners.
Fully implementing our policy of “learning from children”
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Our goal was to create a pencil that young children could easily and properly hold in their hands. In order to reach our goal we researched many different types of pencils. We examined in detail how each type of pencil felt in the hand and how it felt to write with.
It is important when writing with a pencil that the force from the thumb, index finger and middle finger is efficiently transmitted in the direction of writing. When a triangular shape is used, the gap between these three fingers is uniform. This ensures stable usage. Therefore, we decided on the triangular shape, which can be held in a natural and correct manner by young children.
Next we asked children in Kumon centers to try out our prototype model. Our observations of these young students made us realize that youngsters were holding standard thin pencils too tightly, leading to hand muscle fatigue. This made us focus on making the pencil thicker. We also realized that the balance of the pencil was important. Thus it was important to consider the length of the upper part of the pencil that sticks up above the base of the index finger, which serves as a point of support. Accordingly we fine-tuned by millimeters the thickness and length of our prototype.
Based on our observations of children, we came to the conclusion that a 6B pencil would be the ideal level of darkness for writing and for erasing. We realized that even if the writing pressure was low, the 6B pencil worked well. The result of all of our learning from children was the Kumon Children’s Pencil.
We want students to enjoy writing and to experience joy in their learning
he Kumon Children’s Pencil was an instant hit because it was easy for children to properly grip and was easy to write with. Later, in response to the requests of customers, we developed the 4B pencil and the 2B pencil. These pencils are appropriate for different hand and letter sizes.
The Kumon Children’s Pencil embodies the desire of the developers to help children write enjoyably and to write a lot. Kumon Publishing has always taken the approach of positively responding to all opinions and viewpoints, no matter how small, during the development process before proceeding. We are committed to maintaining this stance in the future.