The Kumon method was created by Toru Kumon, a Japanese maths teacher. In 1954, seeing that his son was struggling with maths at primary school, professor Kumon began to teach him at home and this developed into the Kumon Method.
A large part of the method is about focusing on the four key arithmetical skills of addition, subtraction, division and multiplication, and moving on to more advanced skills only when you have really grasped the basics. The method also lays stress on being able to do your tasks within a specific time frame, ie you are not considered to have mastered a skill if you can only do the tasks very slowly.
Other parents were impressed by the success of the professor's methods and began to use them too. In 1956 the first Kumon Institute was opened in Tokyo. Today they exist all over the world and the methods are used for all learning, not just maths.