Totally OT- homework in kindergarten

My third grader is reading a 200-300 page novel every month. Like it or not, the world is getting more competitive, not less, and the US is falling behind. We can either whine about what kids should be doing or we can push them to be competitive in tomorrow's marketplace. It's totally your call with your kids, but I'm not going to stand idly by and watch my kid lose college placement to students from overseas. Good luck!

Yup, this. I only HOPE my children get challenged like this when they reach school age.

Homework in the US is nothing compared to how they study in Asian countries. When I was last in the Philippines in 2010, my neice who was in kindergarten was already learning basic addition/subtraction with double digits.

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In Montessori kids are learning mathematics in Primary (pre-k). My youngest is in Lower Elementary (1-3) and has already touched on division and fractions. It's a slower ramp up to learning things in a Montessori setting though, and they begin with using materials that help them visualize what they are doing, so by the time they are in upper elementary (4-6) they can largely accomplish problems without the materials being involved.

My son is 3rd grade and spends probably 2-3 hours a night on homework, plus homework weekends, which is usually studying for tests and quizzes. Kindergarten was about an hour. His nights usually consist of reading (2x to himself 1x out loud to parents), spelling (copy 20 words 3x), Math (writing the entire equation out and showing all work), History, Science & Language assignments and studying for tests or quizzes coming up that week.

I don't complain one bit about any of it because it challenges him and pushes him to use his brain in consistently diverse subjects. The fact that he got a 100% on a science test labeling all of the parts of the inner ear the 2nd week of school impressed me! We have friends who have kids around the same age that are completely lazy about school work and it shows (ummm texting style abbreviations on essays :-/), struggling with easy reader books.

Kids should be challenged. I doubt in kindergarten the teacher will put a lot of weight on correctness, and more on effort. They don't expect the kids to know all of what they send home, or to have perfect handwriting, it is to get them into the routine of homework, as least that is how my sons K teacher was. As the year went on she focused on their work being correct AND effort.

Just came across this:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/29822856-418/no-homework-policy-improves-home-life-for-younger-students-at-one-cps-school.html#.VBjwHGK9KSP

So I figured I'd post this here as it is such a vast, diverse group from allover the world. I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this, as well as their experiences.

My 5 year old is in full day kindergarten, so almost 7 hours a day, there is no half day option. He is getting 4 worksheets a night, which sometimes takes 40 minutes. (10 minutes per sheet. The work includes writing letters, writing words, doing counting, simple math, writing numbers etc. ) The school said if your child gets frustrated take a break. If they are still frustrated to stop. When we decided not to do all of it the teacher strongly suggested we do indeed complete 4 sheets a night.

On top of that my son does not have great fine motor skills yet. He can copy letters and knows them by sight but writing is still awkward for him. We are meeting with the teacher next week and she said she will be giving us MORE work to take home to help him.

So we could be looking at an hour of homework. Every night. For a 5 YEAR OLD!!!! This feels really wrong to me. Shouldn't they be digging for worms and making awesome art projects?

What are your kids doing? I would love to know!

Thanks

I personally think that is too much homework for a 5 year old kindergarten student, especially this early in the year. I have a son that just started kindergarten and he's one of the younger kids in his class. He's not on the same maturity level as a lot of the other students in his class and he has a terrible time focusing. He has one worksheet a night that takes anywhere from 5-20 minutes, then about 10 minutes of practicing sight words, then a book at bed time. We spread it out to keep him from getting too frustrated.

Maybe you could express your concerns to the teacher when you meet him/her? Not every kid is cut out for the work right away and pushing them to the point of tears and frustration is only going to give the child a negative opinion of school. I spoke about my concerns with our family Pediatrician and he suggested not to worry about anything before the 1st quarters end or possibly even beyond. Boys tend to have a more difficult time sitting still in a classroom or doing homework and it takes them time to learn that skill.

One hour devoted to studying/ homework is not bad at all. Inconvenient perhaps, but not bad. Kids learn by practice and memorization. If activity is an issue, don't you have time at home to devote to physical activities as well?

Well like anything it's a matter of adjusting to the new, not my strongest suit. We are extremely active on the weekends, doing 5+ mile hikes in the hills, swimming in the ocean. I need to figure out what works for us during school days. Of course it can be done; I was one of those people 6 months ago who said "oh my how oh how can I find time exercise. I'm a busy little mommy lol." But look 6 months later and I've been consistently exercising 6 days a week, reaching new running speeds and lengths. And so, judging by the numerous responses on this thread, we probably can fit play and work in

Just like exercise, pace yourself and him! My son gets frustrated at times and we take a break & come back in a little while. For my son even a short bike ride to the mailbox or around the block gives him enough of a breather that he's ready to work when we come back inside. I've found when he gets frustrated he stops trying & when he stops trying we both lose our patience. I don't do well with him guessing answers instead of just thinking about it for a minute. Once your son adjusts he will "get it" and it won't be so tough every night. This is our 4th year with homework & we still have our problem nights!

Figured it out

My third grader is reading a 200-300 page novel every month. Like it or not, the world is getting more competitive, not less, and the US is falling behind. We can either whine about what kids should be doing or we can push them to be competitive in tomorrow's marketplace. It's totally your call with your kids, but I'm not going to stand idly by and watch my kid lose college placement to students from overseas. Good luck!

While I agree with this general point, one of the main reasons why the USA is falling behind in literacy is because they teach with sight words/look and say type methods as the main reading method, and not synthetic phonics. Research in the UK has shown that synthetic phonics is a far superior method, requires way less memorisation and that about 40% of kids don't have the visual memory to memorise so many sight words, and so learn much better with synthetic phonics (and the other 60% can learn with either method but make significantly more progress with synthetic phonics)

additionally, having seen how maths is taught in USA schools and USA maths schemes of work for primary aged kids, again there's a massive emphasis on memorising number facts rather than understanding the concepts that underpin them.

Some good schemes of work from the UK I'd recommend would be any of the better synthetic phonics programmes (BRI-ARI is the one I've used with struggling readers when working as a tutor, and the one I use to teach my own kids to read) and the "maths makes sense" scheme from Oxford University. Also look at the evidence backing up these methods, including two very major studies backing up synthetic phonics.

Giving 5 yr olds an hours homework every night won't fix what's broken in the USA system. It'll just make the problem worse as kids who are struggling at age 5 will become severely disaffected with education and less likely to achieve later on, which negatively impacts the whole system as they throw time and money at these kids when if they'd have got it right initially, they wouldn't have half as many disaffected underachievers later on.

Also, if a parent has to sit and help the child do their homework, then the parent is teaching the child. That shouldn't be happening. Homework should be for extra practice or assessment of what they learned in class. That means they should be able to do it independently (as in maybe a parent needs to make the child sit down and do it, but the parent shouldn't have to show or teach the child how to do it). Giving hours of homework a night where the parent has to bascially teach the child how to do the homework, the question to be asked should be why hasn't the child been taught this in class? I'm not blaming classroom teachers for this, they deliver the system as they've been trained to do it. It's the system that's the problem, i.e. teachers are not trained in the best methods, the way children are grouped etc is not the most effective way for learning, and the curricula are not based on the most effective teaching methods. And the result is the teacher having to siphon half of what the child's supposed to learn onto the parent.

Also, when schools rely on parents teaching the child at home, this greatly disadvantages kids whose parents are uneducated or don't care enough to help. If all the teaching is taking place in school then these kids are a lot less disadvantaged.

My third grader is reading a 200-300 page novel every month. Like it or not, the world is getting more competitive, not less, and the US is falling behind. We can either whine about what kids should be doing or we can push them to be competitive in tomorrow's marketplace. It's totally your call with your kids, but I'm not going to stand idly by and watch my kid lose college placement to students from overseas. Good luck!

While I agree with this general point, one of the main reasons why the USA is falling behind in literacy is because they teach with sight words/look and say type methods as the main reading method, and not synthetic phonics. Research in the UK has shown that synthetic phonics is a far superior method, requires way less memorisation and that about 40% of kids don't have the visual memory to memorise so many sight words, and so learn much better with synthetic phonics (and the other 60% can learn with either method but make significantly more progress with synthetic phonics)

additionally, having seen how maths is taught in USA schools and USA maths schemes of work for primary aged kids, again there's a massive emphasis on memorising number facts rather than understanding the concepts that underpin them.

Some good schemes of work from the UK I'd recommend would be any of the better synthetic phonics programmes (BRI-ARI is the one I've used with struggling readers when working as a tutor, and the one I use to teach my own kids to read) and the "maths makes sense" scheme from Oxford University. Also look at the evidence backing up these methods, including two very major studies backing up synthetic phonics.

Giving 5 yr olds an hours homework every night won't fix what's broken in the USA system. It'll just make the problem worse as kids who are struggling at age 5 will become severely disaffected with education and less likely to achieve later on, which negatively impacts the whole system as they throw time and money at these kids when if they'd have got it right initially, they wouldn't have half as many disaffected underachievers later on.

Also, if a parent has to sit and help the child do their homework, then the parent is teaching the child. That shouldn't be happening. Homework should be for extra practice or assessment of what they learned in class. That means they should be able to do it independently (as in maybe a parent needs to make the child sit down and do it, but the parent shouldn't have to show or teach the child how to do it). Giving hours of homework a night where the parent has to bascially teach the child how to do the homework, the question to be asked should be why hasn't the child been taught this in class? I'm not blaming classroom teachers for this, they deliver the system as they've been trained to do it. It's the system that's the problem, i.e. teachers are not trained in the best methods, the way children are grouped etc is not the most effective way for learning, and the curricula are not based on the most effective teaching methods. And the result is the teacher having to siphon half of what the child's supposed to learn onto the parent.

Also, when schools rely on parents teaching the child at home, this greatly disadvantages kids whose parents are uneducated or don't care enough to help. If all the teaching is taking place in school then these kids are a lot less disadvantaged.

This. the idea of my son learning to read by sight worries me. I went to a private school and learned by phonetics.