homework in gradeschool

[houseelf]

This topic should probably be in the parenting section, but I know that eduation can be a hot topic so I'll err conservatively and post it in here.

I've heard a lot about homework in the lower grades from both the media and fellow parents. For an example of the criticism of the boom in homework for the lower grades:

http://borntoexplore.org/homework.htm

How do you feel about homework in the lower grades? What are your children asked to do? Are you happy with the school's homework policy?

Kelly

[houseelf]

I have a kindergartener who is assigned very little to no homework. One time he had a family tree project which needed our input because he didn't know all of his relatives' names.

Next year he will attend elementary school in this same school which adheres to a very minimal homework policy. Each week, the kids set their own goals with the teacher's guidance for the upcoming week. At this level, the activity which most resembles homework per se is a list of spelling words which must be mastered sometime by the following week. Typically, this list of words is tailored to some cross functional topic that the child is working on. At most, homework would entail projects are uncompleted at school or reading books of the child's choice.

Now, DS's teacher keeps in touch with me and encourages him to practice writing to refine his small motor skills (an area in which he struggles and has little motivation to master). Occasionally the school sends home flyers on ways to create a learning enriched environment. In truth, however, there is very little that is formally assigned to my knowledge.

Bottom line: I'm biased because I absolutely love my son's school. Truthfully, I think that homework before middleschool is more for the parents than the kids.

With this being said, however, the admittedly compulsive parent in me sees my neighbor's kid coming home with 1-5 worksheets per night from his local parochial school. The parents have a crystal clear understanding of that child's progress because they are engaged in this child's work every step of the way. My neighbor admits that this is a source of stress because both she and her husband work, they have two kids, a house, and a handful of activities sprinkled throughout the week. She says that she gets a tad resentful when she sits down at 8 o'clock to go through homework every night. Still, she intimately knows what her son is learning and is generally happy with the school its curriculum.

In other words, I see both sides of this....

What is your take?

Kelly

[PrincessFiona]

Well, you all know I'm not ver opinionated about things but I'll add my .02

I'm shocked by the amount of things that my children come home with. Most annoying is my 1st grader's 'sticker marker' reading book. The 1st graders receive readers that have 8-10 stories in them that are 5-10 pages long. Each child must read each story 3 times and the parent must sign each time that they have read it. The expectation is that the child can read several stories a night.

My little cherub is *tired* after finishing the story twice...and to be honest...1/2 the time I just sign off on the 3rd time even though he hasn't read it 3 times. Why? I can't stand to hear about "that is not the blue parrot. Do you see the blue parrot. No I do not see the blue parrot. I see the red parrot. Do you see the red parrot" :!

When my ds got a little 'behind' it was actually suggested to me by the teacher that some kids were reading 6 stories a night. Not wanting to be confrontational I snorted and told her that if she believed that those kids were reading 6 stories a night 3 times then I had a bridge to sell her! :>

The kids that don't come into 1st grade here being fairly good readers already are already doomed to the 'average/low' groups from the very beginning. In some ways, I feel that this is the new parenting competition arena. We've gone from sending our 3 year olds to competitive gymnastics to putting them in preschool book clubs or something. I feel like kids just can't be kids anymore!

My 4th grader does get a good amount of homework, but she chooses study hall over recess to get as much done as possible.....One thing I notice though is that the schools are terribly inflexible in terms of teaching methods. Amanda is a very visual learner and I have asked specifically to be given the unit they are working on and the assignments with no success...this way I could create some more 'hands-on' learning assignments for her. It's all worksheets, worksheets, worksheets around here.

My middle schooler has huge assignments and all written work has to be typed! He has also already had typing class! He's about to turn 11 and he just finished giving his first POWER POINT presentation. Did I ever mention that I defended my thesis on an overhead projector because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get the power point thing to work? He had to write a paper about a preschool memory and then prepare a presentation for the class!!

I'm so old.

[Vanquisher]

I hate homework!!! I had a very confrontational meeting with the teacher and the VP of my son's school last week over this very issue. Kids are not allowed to be kids anymore.

Chad was post call for the meeting with the teacher, and so, he was able to come with me. That was good because I don't think I could have done that alone. I am a highly emotional and sensitive person, and I am quick to cry or lose my temper. It is always how I have been, and I am not proud of it.

So, we put Ryan and Alexia in his classroom with some toys and went into the next room so that we could talk privately. Anyway, we stepped into the room and right away I was really, really worried. The reason: A woman who I did not know steps into the meeting as well - the Vice Principal. Great.

Chad and I explained our position and we were met with:

1. We cannot change the curriculum just for you.
2. If you think this is a lot of work, wait until 3rd grade.
3. Your son has no problems with the work in school.
4. You are describing a different child than what we see in school.
5. Sometimes reading isn't fun, it is just something they have to learn.
6. Ryan melts down in school if he makes tiny mistakes (implying that we are so hard on him that he is worried that he will be in trouble if he makes a mistake). I am actually not sure what they were implying here, but they were very accusatory, and it was awful.


Basically what it came down to is that a lot of the reading she assigns is incentive reading. He has to read 25 books in order to get a prize at the end of the term. Ryan doesn't view incentive programs as optional. This is our fault, and we just need to tell him that it is optional because obviously we are too hard on him and that is why he is so emotionally crippled. Seriously, this is how they were. Ryan reads at a higher level. Therefore all of his reading books have to be in his range above a 5.0 or they do not count. Books at this level are either a) long or b) completely uninteresting to a 7 year old. How is it fair exactly that he has to read 25 - 200 page books in 8 weeks and the other children who are at lower levels can read 25 picture books?

After 45 minutes of them telling me basically tough $h!t, the VP asked if I could send in the books he reads and they could see how many books they should count for since Ryan is reading at a higher level and this really is unfair. Finally, progress!

Anyway, I felt very defensive. Ryan gets very tired at night and comes home and complains about his reading and homework. He takes longer to do it at night because he is tired. He works much better in the morning. Anyway, so they told me this wasn't the same child and how eager and enthusiastic he is to do things at school. Yes. I know that. They do not see him at home. He wants to please his teacher. He wouldn't dream of saying to her that he doesn't like something. It is not who he is, but they insisted on telling me that I don't know my son and how he has a melt down everytime he gets anything wrong. We have told him repeatedly that it is okay to make mistakes, but this is how he is. He puts the pressure on himself. We have tried to tell him that it isn't a problem, that it is okay. We work on this all the time.

Anyway, so he goes to school, and I sent in his reading books. She sends them home and says other kids read books that big too, so she won't count his for extra. Umm, excuse me, what was our meeting for exactly? Fun? Other kids might read 200 page books ocassionally, but not for every book and not 6.3 and 6.7 level books! GRRRRR! I looked up the book I just read, The Time Traveller's Wife - 4.7!! That book would not have counted for him. Go ahead, look up John Grisham or other authors, rarely do they get much higher than that.

I wish I had the money to pull him to a private school.

It was a horrible meeting, and I know I probably didn't describe it very well. I felt very tense the whole time and was on the verge of tears a couple of times. One time the VP even said to me, "You look very upset." My response, "I'm just not feeling very well." Which was true, but I was upset.

So his homework is:

20 minutes of free reading.
2-3 work sheets per night.
Challenge math (1 per week)
Gifted and Talented quest assignments (I per week)

All in all it takes us 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours to do all the work depending on what is assigned and the level of fatigue in my 7 year old.

My parents are both teachers, and my MIL is too. Anyway, my mom is a really, really good teacher (won several awards and now teaches interns how to teach in her school district). She agrees that my son has way too much homework, but there doesn't seem to be alot I can do about it. On one hand I have a very inflexible system that is only concerned with test scores and blah, blah, blah, and on the other I have an overachiever who wouldn't dream on not doing his homework or getting a bad grade. Ugh.

Homework is lame. It is more for parents than kids. It sucks. I hate it. I wish it would be done away with until at least grade 4 or 5. Even then, it should be minimal at most. It's just too much.

[DCJenn]

Ok, maybe this will be met with a huge amount of criticism, the "No Child Left Behind" Act has totally screwed up education in my mind.

Teaching to a test so that your school doesn't lose funding doesn't sound like a great way to make sure that the children (who aren't left behind after all) actually learn anything.

I think homework is ridiculous until 4th grade, and then, it should be fun kinds of things. I didn't do homework in high school because I thought it was asinine. My grades suffered but not as much as you'd think! I read what needed to be read and memorized the crap that I knew I needed to regurtitate for the weekly: math/french/vocabulary tests every friday. (and yes, I've always had this totally resentful attitude mostly because I was bored out of my mind for 90% of my educational life- but because I didn't test as G & T I wasn't eligible. (G & T classes at my high school were an all or nothing kind of thing- either you took the whole curriculum or you smoked cigarettes and worked as the editor of the school newspaper because that got you into 4 lunch periods and out of English every day....)

I have been looking at pre-schools in all of the areas where the army may send us and man, it's a bizarre world out there. Where is my non-church affliliated, progressive, small, educational but not pressured pre-school? Where? (and I think we can all safely assume that my home-schooling probably would consist of my telling the state people to bite me, so that probably wouldn't work so well)

Jenn

[DCJenn]

PS- I'm really hoping that Fluffhead, Sally and Amy get in on this... (and any other educators that we have)

Jenn

[fluffhead]

PS- I'm really hoping that Fluffhead, Sally and Amy get in on this... (and any other educators that we have)

I teach high school. I tell the kids that the homework is a good idea, but I'm not going to check it. I go over it in class, and have a general feeling of who is doing it, but it's up to them. I give more than is needed, and trust them to know how much to complete until they feel comfortable with the material. That said, for most of them, they should be doing 30 min of MY homework about 3 - 4 times a week to be comfortable with the stuff.
I think that the amount of HW I'm reading about in here for early grades is patently ridiculous. Perhaps I'll include montessori grade schools in our search for our next place to live.

[PrincessFiona]

Heidi,

We went through the EXACT same thing with Andrew....the schools are also so inflexible that once they test their reading level, they don't COUNT any books read BELOW that reading level. So, if he wants to read a book "just" for pleasure it doesn't count. WTH?

In any case, he now does exactly the bare minimum required for reading for school because we told him he can read whatever he wants to at home.

We've also had similar meetings with the schools..it's just ridiculous!

kris

[mommax3]

I have company right now so I can't really post, but I will be sure to weigh back in on this one when I get a chance....*surprise* I have an opinion!

Sally

[Auspicious]

Other kids might read 200 page books ocassionally, but not for every book and not 6.3 and 6.7 level books! GRRRRR! I looked up the book I just read, The Time Traveller's Wife - 4.7!! That book would not have counted for him. Go ahead, look up John Grisham or other authors, rarely do they get much higher than that.

Is this like a Flesch-Kincade Index, or some other kind of measure?

[Vanquisher]

Other kids might read 200 page books ocassionally, but not for every book and not 6.3 and 6.7 level books! GRRRRR! I looked up the book I just read, The Time Traveller's Wife - 4.7!! That book would not have counted for him. Go ahead, look up John Grisham or other authors, rarely do they get much higher than that.

Is this like a Flesch-Kincade Index, or some other kind of measure?

This is the Accelerated Reader Reading levels. A book that is a 4.7 is considered the difficulty level of 4th grade 7th month as far as vocabulary, etc. Accelerated Reader is a widely used measure in schools to assign reading levels to books and to quiz kids on their comprehension of books they have read. Ryan has to take quizzes on all books he reads and score 80% (8/10 questions) or better on a 5.0+ level book in order for it to count.

There aren't that many books that are above a level 7 or 8 as I noticed when I started looking them up at:
http://www.renlearn.com/store/quiz_home.asp

What are they going to make the kid read next year, War and Peace? Hawthorne?

Give me a break.

[Auspicious]

Thanks!

[fluffhead]

yikes!
Points and quizzes and levels oh my! School has a way of taking the fun out of just about everything! I didn't know reading had gotten to be such a chore - I'm dreading having my kids in grade school. We used to read and read books from the library. If I'd had to keep track and take quizzes, I'm sure I'd have read much much less.
Is this all a product of No Child Left Behind, or was this in place for years and I've just been blissfully ignorant?

[PrincessFiona]

What's shocking is how much pressure there is in grade school here and how the disconnect comes once the kids hit highschool. I don't know if the kids are just too busy with part-time jobs, puberty or...hangin' out, but how is it that they can't manage to string together a complete sentence when thet get to college? Maybe we're just scraping the bottom of the barrel at the U here.

[Rapunzel]

Ahhh, a subject for which I have absolutely NO comment!

(Because I already told the state to "bite me" :> ).

Jennifer