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Homework
How much is too much? First off, I do not give a lot of homework. I give an assignment at the beginning of the week and students are to complete it by a specific day. When they do it is their business, and there is class time available almost every day. Second, I teach 9th grade, not elementary so I don’t really know what is appropriate. That said…let me address the elementary level.
I have a first grader and a fourth grader. The older child has less than twenty minutes of homework each night. Actually, she is given her assignments on Monday and has to have them complete by Friday. There is a pace guide to keep her on track. On the other hand after an hour the first grader is still chugging along on her third math sheet, her vocabulary/spelling, or just starting her reading. We spend at least an hour on homework Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. I finally asked her teacher about it and that is what is assigned. I was concerned that she wasn’t finishing her work at school or that she was just messing around at home and should be finishing in half the time. Nope. That’s how much there is. Her teacher didn’t say this, but she also didn’t say that it shouldn’t be taking that long. In fact, she complimented Tweety on being a very smart little girl. Yes…thanks…now about the hour plus of homework….
Really, isn’t this too much? I know state tests are coming up next week, but come ON! If they haven’t gotten it by now it ain’t gonna happen! The teacher is trying to make sure they are not nervous in ANY way. Well you know what? If they do not feel the nervousness of the adults around them they will not know that it isn’t just any other test!
I really feel bad for the students who don’t “get it” or whose parents do not encourage them through the homework.
This is an occupational hazard too. After spending 7:30 until after 3 with students the LAST thing I want to do is come home and stay on a kid about work! Part of the parenting job I know but still! Accountants, do you truly enjoy doing your own taxes after you have been doing the taxes of everyone else? OK, bad example they probably do. You numbers people…geeesh!
So many articles say that a child should not have over 20 minutes of work each night.
I DO SEE THE POINT OF HOMEWORK. THERE IS VALUE!
Seriously though, she’s SIX!
I searched the ‘net for homework standards. There are all sorts of articles condemning homework as ineffective. I disagree. It has its place and it has value. However, so does time to develop as a child. So does play time. Where we are, students have PE once a week. They have recess everyday, but that isn’t the same in my book. Playing has value!
From MSN Encarta Columns:
So the next logical question is: Does homework really help kids learn? It depends on who you believe. A study by Dr. Carol Huntsinger, professor of education and psychology at the College of Lake County in Grayslake, Illinois, says kids who get more homework in preschool and kindergarten get better grades later and go to more prestigious colleges. But a study by Dr. Harris Cooper of the University of Missouri says kids who do more homework in elementary school don’t score one bit better in the standardized tests now administered by many states.
In any case, if kids are now doing 134 minutes of homework a week, that comes out to about 26 minutes a night (33 1/2 if they’re only getting homework four nights a week). To me, that doesn’t seem like such a load. Which raises the real question: How much homework is too much?
Puzzled parents might find it useful to know the teachers’ “ten-minute” rule-of-thumb: The right amount of homework is ten minutes for first graders, 20 minutes for second graders, and so on up. By that measure, sixth graders should be doing about an hour of homework a night–roughly twice what they are doing now, according to the Michigan study.
A comment on another site put things in perspective and said what I’ve been thinking:
“I think any homework for a first grader is crazy. They have our children for eight hours a day, the child needs ten hours of sleep, an hour for dinner, there is also the 1-2 hours of getting ready for school and traveling time to and from. So that leaves three hours for chores and for them to just be kids. I think the only work that should come home is things that were not completed in class. There should be no work specifically assigned for the home. That being said, I do make my children complete their homework, I just grumble about it.”
I’m just glad that Tweety has the ability to do it and usually has a good attitude. Pretty days like we have had lately make it hard though. She’s usually in tears by the start of the second hour.
Thanks for reading my rant. Have a nice day. It’s Wednesday…all downhill from here!
Did You Know?
High school students are suffering an epidemic of back, neck, and shoulder injuries due to all the books they have to lug around in their backpacks. The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons made this announcement in 1998.
4 Responses to Homework
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Flair
We have a similar situation. I give a bit of homework each night (except weekends usually about 15-30 minutes) to my juniors in high school, but I don’t think a 6 year old should be doing homework. I have a first grader myself, and although he doesn’t have an hour a night, there is homework.
Given all the time they spend on math and reading in class, there should not be the need for homework.
It’s too much. Possibly the teacher does not fully understand what she is asking the kids to do.
My kid came home from afterschool care one day with my husband carrying her backpack. He walked past me to the bathroom scale, dropped the backpack on it, and announced, “25 pounds.” She was in the 5th grade and weighed less than 80 pounds at the time. I went into school with her the next morning and carried that heavy backpack up to her 3rd-floor classroom and told her teacher, “This is too much.” She denied giving my kid that much work, but as she pulled things out of the backpack she kept saying, “Yes, she needed that, yes, she needed that….”
I told the teacher that my instructions to my daughter were that she was to get through as much of her homework as she could during the school day, starting with the heaviest books so that she could leave those behind; and that she was to take zeros on her work before she brought that heavy bookbag home again. And I meant it. Things got a lot better, right away. The teacher just wasn’t thinking. (In middle and high school, we ordered her schoolbooks from the Amazon used bookstore so that she had a set at home.)
Here is my unasked-for advice. Your kid’s teacher already knows she’s a smart girl and she’s been doing her homework. Set a timer for 20 minutes and tell your daughter to get through what she can before the timer goes. Tell the teacher you are going to do this, because an hour is just too much. You could help your kid prioritize what she needs to do, or you could just let her start at the top and see how far she gets. You’ll have to not care too much about her grade in case the teacher is hard-nosed about it. But if it were my kid, I’d do it. The teacher has your daughter all day and she just doesn’t need to be scheduling your daughter’s evenings this way.
This will also give you credibility with your kid later, if you have to speak to her about spending more time on her studies. You will be able to remind her that you really don’t ask her to do more than is reasonable, even when you have to fight the teacher about it.
that sounds like a lot of homework for a 1st grader. my daughter has homework 2 or 3nights a week, but often is reading for various contests which she sets her goal high
My Littleone is in KINDERGARTEN, and she has reading homework 2 or 3 nights a week already. Also, I’ve seen what first graders at our school have to do… We can expect to have at least an hour every night next year as well, and it just burns my butt.