Japanese children learn 1,026 kanji in the six years of elementary school, a set called the kyōiku kanji, “education kanji”. The Ministry of Education assigns each character to a grade: 80 in the first year, 160 in the second, then roughly 200 a year until the sixth, according to the grade allocation summarised in the Wikipedia article on kyōiku kanji. They are a subset of the 2,136 jōyō kanji that make up the official everyday set, and the rest are taught in junior high school. For adult learners, the list is useful in two ways: it is a sensible order for the first thousand characters, and it shows how much patient, repeated handwriting practice native speakers themselves need.
The numbers, grade by grade
| Grade | Kanji introduced | Running total | Typical content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 80 | 80 | Numbers, nature, body, simple verbs: 一, 山, 川, 目, 見 |
| 2 | 160 | 240 | Time, family, direction, common activities: 時, 父, 北, 話 |
| 3 | 200 | 440 | Abstract and school concepts, more compounds |
| 4 | 202 | 642 | Society, government, includes prefecture-name kanji |
| 5 | 193 | 835 | Economy, politics, more abstract vocabulary |
| 6 | 191 | 1,026 | Complex concepts, completing the elementary set |
The counts follow the current allocation. The 2,136 jōyō kanji form the official everyday standard, so by the end of elementary school a child has met just under half of them. Our guide to the jōyō kanji list covers the full set.
The 2017 revision and the prefecture kanji
The list has been revised over the decades. The most recent change added 20 characters used in the names of Japanese prefectures, such as the 岡 in 岡山 and the 阪 in 大阪, so that children learn to write the names of their own country’s regions. Wikipedia dates the revision to 2017, and the Ministry of Education’s curriculum materials describe the revised allocation applying in elementary schools from the 2020 school year, as noted on the MEXT curriculum page. The total rose to 1,026 as a result.
The change illustrates how the list works. It is not a frequency list chosen by computer. It reflects judgments about what children need to read and write as citizens, which is why place names earned a place.
How Japanese schools teach kanji
Kanji teaching in Japanese elementary schools follows a recognisable pattern, and it is more handwriting-heavy than many adult learners expect.
Reading comes before full writing mastery. Children meet a character in reading passages, learn its meaning and readings, and are expected to read it fluently before writing it perfectly. Writing accuracy is built over the following years.
Stroke order is taught explicitly. Teachers demonstrate stroke order, children trace and then write characters in practice squares, and stroke order appears on tests. Our guide on how to remember kanji stroke order explains why the order matters for neat, recognisable writing.
Repetition is spread out. Kanji workbooks revisit characters across weeks, and regular short tests check both reading and writing. That pattern of repeated, spaced practice is the same one adult learners benefit from, as our article on spaced repetition for kanji writing explains.
Characters are learned in words. Children rarely learn a kanji in isolation for long. They learn it in vocabulary, with its okurigana, the kana that complete the word, which is why our guide to okurigana matters as much as the characters themselves.
Why the order makes sense
The early grades front-load characters that are simple, common and frequently used as components in later characters. 口 (mouth), 日 (sun, day), 木 (tree) and 人 (person) appear in grade one and then reappear inside hundreds of later characters. A child who knows them well recognises the building blocks of what comes next.
This is the same logic behind learning radicals. Our guide to kanji radicals explains how components carry hints about meaning and sound, and the grade allocation, without saying so explicitly, teaches many common components early.
Should adults follow the school order?
The grade order is a reasonable backbone, but adults have different needs and advantages.
Advantages of following it. The early grades cover high-frequency characters and common components. Children’s books, graded readers and many learning materials are organised by grade, so studying in the same order gives you matching reading material.
Reasons to adjust it. Adults learn faster than six-year-olds, and they need some characters children learn late, such as those for work, money or administration. The JLPT levels, frequency lists and component-based methods all reorder the characters for adult goals.
In practice, the orders overlap heavily. Most of the grade one and two kanji appear early in every adult method, because they are simply the most useful characters. Our guide on where to start learning kanji compares the main approaches, and the one on how many kanji you need to know sets the 1,026 against real reading goals.
What 1,026 kanji lets you read
By the end of elementary school, a Japanese child can read most of the kanji in everyday writing aimed at children and a good share of what appears in general writing, though newspapers and adult books still use many characters from the junior high school list and beyond. For adult learners, reaching the kyōiku kanji level is a meaningful milestone: signs, simple articles and much of daily life become readable, and the remaining jōyō kanji build on the same components.
It is worth being realistic about writing. Many adults can read far more kanji than they can write from memory, and native speakers experience the same gap, especially when they type more than they write. Our article on recognition versus recall explains why the two skills drift apart and how writing practice closes the gap.
Practising the grade one kanji as an adult
The 80 grade one characters make an excellent first project:
- Group them. Numbers, covered in our guide to Japanese numbers in kanji, nature words, body parts, colours and simple verbs. Five to ten characters per group.
- Learn stroke order for each group from a reliable source, writing slowly.
- Write each character from memory the next day, then check it. Do not trace once you know the shape.
- Learn each in a word. 山 in 富士山, 目 in 目覚まし, 見 in 見る. Words make the readings stick.
- Spread the practice over days. Ten minutes a day for two weeks beats two hours in one evening.
- Test yourself in mixed order once the groups are familiar.
By the end, you will have the characters every Japanese child starts with, and the habits to tackle the next 160. Keep a short list of the characters you miss most often, and start each new session by writing those first, before moving on to anything new.
The Kanji Kentei follows the same grades
Japan also has a dedicated kanji test, the Kanji Kentei or Kanken, run by the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation. Its lower levels map directly onto the school grades: level 10 covers the 80 first-grade kanji, level 9 the second grade, and so on, until level 5 tests the full 1,026 kanji learned by the end of sixth grade, as the Wikipedia article on the Kanji Kentei summarises. Unlike the JLPT, the Kanken tests writing as well as reading, and its higher levels expect learners to write the full jōyō set.
For adult learners who want an external target for handwriting, the Kanken levels offer something the JLPT does not: a test that actually asks you to produce characters, not just recognise them. Working towards level 8 or 7 gives a concrete, graded goal that lines up neatly with the school order described above. Many Japanese children take the lower levels while still in elementary school, so the material is written with young learners in mind and the early levels are approachable.
Furigana and children’s reading materials
Japanese children’s books, school textbooks and many manga print small kana above kanji, called furigana, to show the reading of characters a child has not learned yet. As a child moves through the grades, books aimed at older readers drop the furigana for characters already taught. That makes graded children’s material an ideal companion to the kyōiku list for adults: you can read real Japanese with support for the characters you have not reached, and watch the support fall away as your kanji knowledge catches up.
When you study with furigana, cover the kana now and then and test whether you can read the kanji on its own. The furigana are a crutch for reading; your goal is to stop needing them, and eventually to write the characters they annotate.
Where kyōiku kanji fit with the JLPT
Adult learners often follow the Japanese Language Proficiency Test levels instead of school grades. The two systems overlap but are not identical: JLPT levels group characters by usefulness for adult learners, and the official test does not publish fixed kanji lists. Most of the grade one and two kanji appear at the lowest JLPT levels in common study lists. Our guides to JLPT N5 kanji writing practice and JLPT N4 kanji writing practice cover the test side, including the important detail that the JLPT has no handwriting section, so writing practice serves memory rather than the exam.
Key takeaways
Japanese children learn 1,026 kyōiku kanji across six elementary grades, 80 in grade one rising to around 200 a year, a subset of the 2,136 jōyō kanji. The current list includes 20 prefecture-name characters added in the 2017 revision and taught from 2020. Schools teach reading first, stroke order explicitly, and writing through spaced, repeated practice in words. For adults, the grade order is a solid backbone that overlaps with JLPT and frequency orders, and the 80 grade one characters make an ideal first handwriting project.
Frequently asked questions
What are kyōiku kanji?
Kyōiku kanji, “education kanji”, are the 1,026 characters Japanese children learn in the six years of elementary school, assigned to specific grades by the Ministry of Education in its grade allocation table. They are a subset of the 2,136 jōyō kanji. The current list added 20 characters used in prefecture names in a 2017 revision, which took effect with the new curriculum from 2020.
How many kanji do Japanese children learn each grade?
According to the current allocation, 80 in grade one, 160 in grade two, 200 in grade three, 202 in grade four, 193 in grade five and 191 in grade six, for 1,026 in total. The remaining jōyō kanji are covered in junior high school. Children learn to read them first, and writing each one accurately follows over the following years.
Should adult learners follow the kyōiku kanji order?
It is a reasonable backbone, because the early grades cover the most common, simplest characters and the components of later ones. Adults usually move faster and benefit from mixing in characters they need for work or daily life. Many adult courses order kanji by frequency, by JLPT level or by components, and all of those overlap heavily with the early grades.
Do Japanese children really practise writing kanji by hand?
Yes, extensively. Kanji drill workbooks, practice squares and regular kanji tests are a normal part of elementary school, and stroke order is taught explicitly. Handwriting remains part of schooling even as typing grows, because writing practice reinforces recognition and teaches the structure of characters that typing alone does not.
How can I practise the grade one kanji as an adult?
Take the 80 grade one characters in small groups, learn each one’s stroke order, write it from memory several times across a few days, and check your writing against a reference. {{appName}}, free in early access, is built around writing kanji from memory, which suits a small, fixed set like the grade one list.
