What's the Point of Homework?

I am in a really bad mood right now since my kid is so far behind and I’ve made him work all summer.

I think sometimes the point is to make the parents do work that should be getting done at school. I understand the practive for spelling words and a little math but when I get a bunch of work sheets plus reading sent home it’s too much.

We do it faithfully because I am pretty sure I am the only one who cares if my kid learns.

Lin,
I have no solution, but I agree. It’s too much - 90 to 120 minutes a night for a 3rd grader, especially when you know that your child is not getting any benefit from most of it.

There were some research studies written up in U.S. News & World Report last year that indicated that homework prior to grade 5 is counter-productive. Most children cannot work independently on homework before that grade level and so require parental intervention, which often does not help but rather hinders good parent-child relationships. However, the real damage comes from a backlash of resentment in the child because the homework that takes away from playtime (which psychologists point out is essential to development of creativity and social skills, both of which are hard to “teach” when children are older). Children who get homework too early decide early that learning is not fun, and this negatively affects their performance in later years.

Parents often don’t realize that they can negotiate homework and bring it within reasonable limits, especially if a child has an IEP. Most homework is busywork anyway, and does little to advance skills. If your child has an IEP, I would call a team meeting and agree on some reasonable homework limits. In my opinion, 30 minutes a night is *more* than reasonable for a 3rd or 4th grader, and 15 minutes is plenty for a 2nd grader. If dysgraphia makes written homework very slow, you can negotiate for your child to be able to do the work orally (with you signing off that it was done, if necessary).

What I have found with my LD daughter is that repetition and busywork kill her interest and motivation. We now homeschool all academic subjects while she attends a public charter school part-time (because she likes belonging to a school community). This particular K-8 school works on the philosophy that school work, especially in the early grades, belongs in the school, and that family time belongs to the family. Homework is not assigned in the lower grades. Upper grade homework is modified whenever necessary to remain reasonable for individual children.

So, my advice is to advocate vigorously for your daughter on the homework issue. An inappropriate homework load actually hurts a child, and this should be brought to the attention of teachers and administrators. The burden should not be on the child to produce-produce-produce, but on the school to provide reasonable accomodations.

Mary

Sorry for the typo’s.

Mary

I agree! Too much homework is not necessary. I found that my son was doing a minimum of 90 minutes of homework every night and fighting me all the way. Book reports took about 5 hours of homework time spread over three nights in addition to regular homework. I suspected a learning disability, but he was not tested at the time. Most of the other children in the class were able to finish the work in 30 minutes. Example, one math work sheet, write 10 spelling words in a sentence, and read 20 minutes.

The school social worker told me during one of the screening meetings prior to my son’s testing that in third grade a child shouldn’t be doing much more than 30 to 45 minutes of constructive homework a night - that is if he was trying the entire time instead of whining to get out of it. If it is consistently taking longer than that, then either the teacher is giving too much work or it is too difficult for the child. In our case it was too difficult for my son. Had I known that in the beginning of the school year I would have been talking to his teacher to see how we could modify the work or have some of it done over the weekend. By the end of the school year I arranged with the teacher to start attaching notes on work that was too difficult for my son or work that was taking him much too long to complete.

I also found that sitting next to him to keep him on track or being in the same room helped him get the work done because he could ask me questions or I could get him back on track when his mind was wandering. I was lucky, I had only one child in school at the time.

Also, having a quick snack and telling my son he couldn’t go play with his friends until the work was done worked well. It only took a few times of not being able to play to make him work instead of whine. As I said above, I was always there to help answer questions or re-teach the materials when needed.

I would talk to the teacher. See what the expectation is for the amount of time your child should be spending on the work being sent home. Working with the teacher is alot better than your child getting frustrated and you getting frustrated. You may find that the teacher doesn’t expect the homework to take that long and may make some adjustments for the work.

Good luck!

I really believe that the negative experience associated with homework actually hinders my child’s learning. And the school thinks by his age homework should be a completely independent event, with no parent intervention! Not in our house. We’re trying to step back a little, but with his handwriting problems it’s impossible to be hands off.

We do homework in the morning for 1 hour before school. My ld child is too exhausted in the afternoons.

We also found doing some homework in the morning worked fairly well (but we did have a late school start time - 9:15).

Also, after I complained and complained about the amount of homework (with no luck), I finally went in and insisted we brainstorm together about accomodations. I explained to the teacher about his ADD and learning disabilities. The teacher ended up giving us the spelling list on Fridays so we could do all the spelling work on weekends. She cut the spelling list in half (our child is ADD, dylexic, dysgraphic). We also agreed on what was a reasonable amount of time per night (40 minutes) for all homework total and when we hit that time, I would write “40 minutes” and initial the homework. (Knowing the “misery” would be over in 40 minutes, my son no longer put up such a fight to get started on it.) I could also scribe for him because of his writing LD.

When we finally got the amount of time done to a reasonable level, my son began to feel less frustrated about all of it, and we often enjoyed working together on some of the projects. Couldn’t do it on his own though. Just didn’t have the confidence.

Best wishes on your efforts to find a way to make this a pleasant time. I just kept putting my foot down in as pleasant a way possible until the teacher finally agreed to do something. If I hadn’t, we would have been doing 3 hours per night and 6 hours each day on the weekend. Hardest of all was resisting my overpowering urge to want to yell at our son for all his complaining and dawdling while we were doing homework (wasn’t on ADD medication then) and keep it positive and encouraging.

I’m dreading the start of a new school year — August 28th!

Last year I spent, literally, hours combating with my youngest daughter, in order to get her homework done! Homework was work that she was unable to finish in class, not the “busy work” most of you are speaking of. The screaming and crying — hers, not mine — was alarming!

I home school my 14 year old daughter who requires one-on-one attention (LDs and Cerebral Palsy). By the end of the day, I was wiped out and couldn’t handle having to work with my youngest daughter, as well! Having to force the youngest to complete her work always left me feeling like the bad guy.

The school work never ends around here … This year I’m hoping that we can keep on top of it all.

Susan

Apology accepted! I mean this was such a good post.It hit on the biggest thing about unending homework.Advocating for reasonable accomodations.If your child has an IEP or a 504 plan,they must by law accomodate them. One of the biggest best things they( the school) can do is not expect reams of homework sheets going back to school.Hell,even when my kid suffered through hours of homework horrors,he would forget to turn it in.In my case,I simply asked the reg ed teacher and the special ed teacher,how much time do you want them to spend doing homework? They both agreed 30 minutes max was reasonable,we WROTE it into the IEP,big deal here guys,because if it isn’t written it doesn’t happen. In other words,I totally agree with your post.

I understand all of the worries about the amount of homework, but doesn’t making all of the accomadations/modifications effect just how much the children really learn? If the other students learn how to spell 10 words a week for say 10 weeks, then they have learned 100 words to use in their reading and writing skills. If another student learns 5 words a week for 10 weeks, then he learns only 50 words to use in his reading recognition and writing skills. If this goes on year after year, doesn’t he just get further and further behind in his skills? Considering that by the time a student is in middle school, they are learning the spelling and definitions of words in multiple classes (science, history, reading) wouldn’t the student be hindered in his classes if he learns only part of the information? If he doesn’t learn the same amount of information that the other students learn how can he keep up with them. How will the student ever be able to compete in the real world of college, business, or job? Won’t the other students be the ones who get ahead in the world? Won’t the sped students be the ones with the lower paying jobs?

We also went through the same with our son and around 4th grade we said - enough is enough! We worked with the IEP team and cut the work load by more than half; along with it, we found that although we love our son very much, our approach to “helping him” was not very effective. I’m not afraid to admit that we were not very patient after a long day’s work. Sitting with an innatentive child, while cooking dinner to the others, thinking about the endless chores awaiting for me etc, just became too much.

So we hired a tutor, a very smart high school age girl from our neighborhood, for about 30-60 minutes a day. Our son came from school around 3:30 and rested or played for about 1 hour. Got some of his “steam” out, before settling down. At 4:30, it was homework time. By 5-5:30 he was either done or right on track, depending on the amount of “special projects” he had to do.

Don’t get me wrong, we still kept very much on top of things, so that he knew we were involved and cared for what he was doing . But I think that kids need to gradually feel homework is “their” responsibility, and our constant “hovering” is sometimes counter-productive.

This arrangement worked very well for 4th and 5th grades. He finished 6th last year and hardly needed any extra help or constant checking. He was able to do it all pretty much on his own. And, did we feel guilty that we were not the ones “helping him” with his homework? Abolutely not! We actually became more relaxed, with more time to be a “parent” and not stressed-out “substitute” teachers at home.

So, I hope this helps folks. Best of luck!

mlwmc

I’m not sure if you meant this question for me, or not … I’ll try to answer it from my point of view, anyway.

In the case of my 14 year old (CP/LD), the modifications were more along the lines of: 3-minute early release from classes, so that she could locate her next class without being bogged down by the throngs of students passing in the hallways, or knocked down; large print textbooks, which the district claimed they were unable to get ahold of (After contacting the School for the Blind, I had the texts she needed in my home within one week.); an Alpha Smart — similar to a laptop, but not nearly as good — for written assignments (Handwriting was slow and labored, causing her to fall behind); etc.

I don’t believe any parent on this board wishes to see their child’s curriculum dummied down, or lessened in any way; however, many, like myself, believe that if the child is not learning from the way the material is being presented, then changes need to be made to teach the way the child learns. If this means presenting the material in smaller chunks, then that is what needs to be done.

As a homeschooling parent, I find that I can adapt my daughter’s curriculum in any way needed, in order to teach her — If she doesn’t understand the material after the first time it is presented, then I can present it in another way. We’ve had some wonderful results over the past couple of years by doing this. Of course, not every parent has this option available to them.

I’ve worked as a Vocational Trainer for a few years, teaching other adults skills they would need to function in the world. Many have severe disabilities, physical and cognitive. Working as a VT made me really stop and think about my own child. I realized that if I wanted to make a real difference in my daughter’s life, I needed to intervene and take over in the academic arena, as well as teaching her real life skills to help her survive day-to-day as an adult. Afterall, when she is 18-21, the public school system will have washed their hands of her — as her parent, I’m the one who needs to make sure she’ll make it life long after I’m gone.

Sorry, if this was a bit winded. I’ve had a lot of time to think. Although, I don’t know if I really answered your questions …

Susan

On a logical level, what you are saying seems to make sense, but when we are talking about an LD child with severe self-esteem problems, getting 8 out of 10 words right is a lot better than getting 3 out of 20 right. Until it was cut in half, we were spending 1 hour each night just on spelling busy work (make crossword puzzle, word find, story, tongue twisters) every night only to get three words right. What’s he really learning then? NOTHING.

The assumption is made that more time spent on academics means that more is being learned. This is simply not true. For example, my daughter can routinely learn and retain more academics in 5 minutes when she is rested and I have her full attention, than she can in 20 minutes if she is tired and I have only half her attention. More is not necessarily better, more homework does not necessarily mean more learning is taking place, and more time spent on academics does not necessarily mean it is being learned more thoroughly.

The fact that schools assign so much homework means, to me, that they are unable to teach in a way that students can learn efficiently. If you look at the range of student abilities and learning styles in a classroom setting, this is not surprising. For a child with LD, classroom teaching is highly likely to be far less than optimal for efficient learning to take place. If you look at homework assigned, it is often of a type that is simply counter-productive to the way many children learn.

My own daughter learns extremely little in a traditional classroom setting. It’s not because she doesn’t try. The problem is that primary classrooms in this country are routinely organized to meet the needs of sequential learners (the majority learning style). This type of teaching doles out little bits of information each day, which the child gathers like pieces of a puzzle, gradually constructing a larger framework of academic learning. Unfortunately (or fortunately, because it has advantages in other settings), my daughter has a global learning style. Little bits of information are entirely meaningless to her unless she first has a conceptual framework in which to fit them. Without the conceptual framework, she simply does not retain information. She sat through an entire 4th grade year of geography and social studies in a classroom at school. At the end of the year she could not differentiate between a state, a country, and a continent. This is a bright child! Is her learning style at fault? Or was the classroom teaching not meeting her needs? (The teacher, incidentally, is a very nice person whom my daughter liked very much.)

Just piling on more inefficient teaching (by sending it home as homework) does not help an LD child. Eliminating senseless homework is the first step in freeing up time that an LD child needs for real learning to take place — and that includes normal socializing, relaxation, and hobby time.

Spelling is actually a good example. I had my daughter excused from the standard spelling study and testing at school, because the format is entirely useless to her. They could give her 25 words a week from now until doomsday and she could spend 5 hours a week studying them, and her retention would be about 1%. Is this efficient learning? I think not. Instead, we spend 10 minutes a day doing Sequential Spelling, which is a format that meets her needs for learning, and her retention runs around 80%.

We all are sort of brainwashed into thinking that how the school teaches must be right and, if our child can’t keep up with his peers, the child needs to work harder. In my opinion, we all need to shift our focus away from keeping up with schoolwork and more towards providing the means for every child to learn efficiently. This is not dumbing down, but smartening up.

Mary

This comes up every September and you’ll find strength of feeling about this issue from both sides. More and more people are asking this question. I’m a teacher who’s not a fan of homework. Over the years, I’ve watched more and more homework be assigned to younger and younger children. I’ve also watched the homework get… wierder all the time. Strange assignments that make no sense, busy work on busy work.

In the old days, homework was supposed to be practice of the things done during the day. Now it’s projects, projects, projects. Write the history of the state of Wyoming from the buffalo’s point of view. Use all of last year’s vocabulary words in the first paragraph…

Teachers and schools feel under constant pressure that school is not getting the job done. To address that, they give homework. The word “rigor” is very fashionable in schools today. Every school wants to be thought of as “rigorous”.

After watching my own two children struggle with homework, I gained some insight into what other children and other families were going through at night. Many families now have both parents working outside the home and often families don’t eat dinner until very late at night. I now give as little homework as is possible and if any family wants more, I’ll customize things for their child.

On top of that, there is NO study that shows that homework increases student achievement.

There’s a great book called The End of Homework by John Buell. If you want to learn the history of homework and his thoughts on it, it’s a book worth looking into.

For better or for worse I handled the situation very differently.
I was afraid that if homework and classwork was modified my daughters education would be modified and she wouldnt be able to compete in the world as an adult, so through all of this I have never let her slide on a single assignment class or home.

My daughters disabilities were of a severe nature, I was told at one time that my first grader woulnt ever learn to read or write dispite a above normal iq becuase she had visual and auditory processing skills both below 1 percent of the population.

I demanded copies of books at home, demanded copies of teacher lesson plans prior to the week they would be used, screamed bloody murder if so much as one class sheet wasnt sent home that hadnt been compleated in class, had exteneded time on all classwork and assignments, had her redo assignments below 60. At times worked as her reader and/or her scribe and supplied her with more manipulatives for math then I ever knew existed. At first I read everything to her and wrote all her answers and had to show here hand over hand how to use the manipulatives but as the years passed she did learn to read, write and do math.

For 5 yrs its been like a school in my home, with my kids (both have disabilities) going to school to socialize and recieve what little information and knowledge they could from sp-ed and a few teachers who went out of there way to do a little one on one. But most of their learning came from home, everything was pre taught by me for the first 2 yrs she was in sp-ed.

She didnt have much of a social life at home, was even retained for one year in school, but she was a hard working young lady, never complained about the long hours, worked well with me and her home tutors and agreed to the retention against my better judgement, but with my blessings (I felt she was the only one that could make that decision even if she was only in the second grade) we worked strait through all weekends, holidays, vactions and summers (I literally home schooled all weekends and summer, all day, every day) now she can read, caclculate and comprehend on grade level, writeing is still a year and and a half below. I think it was worth it.

she has more of a social life now at home, homework only lasts one to two hours a night.

my son was the opposite, fought every step of the way we were lucky his disabilities were mild cause he would cop out after an hour, (we did find he worked better with male tutors)then with me) he too is on grade level now, I thank god every day for giving my daughter the tenasity she needed, giving my son the mild disabilities, and giving my husband and myself the finacial means for me to quit my job and stay home for the last 5 years.

I know not everyone can do what I did, eighter their bank accounts wont tolerate it, their significant others wont tolerate it or their kids wont tolerate it, but I can honestly say im glad I did it.

This may sound a little different, but in some cases homeowrk can help a parent know does not realize or understand that their child has an LD. Example-my neighbor’s son was tested by the CST in another district during 1st grade who recommended classification, her solution was to move. I became their before and after school daycare provider and being a substitute myself, I made sure he had his homework done every night by the time she arrived from work and though this was his 2nd time through 1st grade, he did not get it. The school attempted to have him tested and she refused. The 2nd year that I watched him I did not have him to his homework assuming that she did not really understand the magnitude of the problem. Sometimes parents may really not know what is going on and the work being brought home could help a parent to realize that the school is right in cases where the parents don’t understand. This is not a help to anyone posting on this board though since we would not be here if our heads were buried in the sand. This is just an off the wall opinion being offered.

What about voice recognition software? I’m about ready to accept that the handwriting is never going to get better and ask for voice recognition software at the next IEP. But, I think it requires a state of the art computer which I don’t have. But I understand completely what your saying about the labored writing.

I read your response about homework and was interested in hearing more about the sequential spelling you are doing. My son (5th grade) is also a holistic learner and has auditory processing difficulties. He can pass a spelling test easily, but he will misspell the same words the next day in a sentence. Any ideas?

is the program we are using and really like. It is available from Avko, which is a non-profit foundation established by Don McCabe, a dyslexic who developed the programs offered. We do one Sequential Spelling lesson a day 7 days a week, with each lesson taking about 10 minutes. Website is http://www.avko.org

Mary