primary school homework?

Question

does anybody else feel that homework and holiday work should not be given to 4 and 5 year olds?

my daughter is 5 and is bringing homework every night and during the holidays and she gets so upset that she cant go to the beach or play out because she has this work to do i personally feel that this is wrong and that primary school children should not get homework or at least only say once a week what do you think?

Answer 1

The purpose of homework is not to see for how long the child can be kept "busy" at home. It is to verify that the child learned the day's lesson. Most students (and this is true for all grades) can follow the lesson perfectly in class, if they pay attention, because the teacher has laid out all the steps in the right order. The real question is whether the student can duplicate the work when they are on their own. If they can, they have learned the lesson. If they cannot, they should look at the textbook that night. If that (and checking with parents and friends) does not work, the teacher should be asked for extra help the next day, assuming that the student payed attention to the lesson in the first place and was not disruptive in class. I give homework every day, including holidays. If you paid attention in my class, that homework should take 10-20 minutes and this is for 10th and 11th grade. The age is different but the principle is the same. It also gives the parents an idea as to how well their children are learning, particularly in the younger grades. It is better to find this out as early as possible. As the students get older, it will become harder for the parents to learn this information.

Answer 2

I taught pre-K and K for 12 years. When I taught pre-K they had homework 3 nights a week. Kindergarten had it 4 nights a week. The work that they did was work that they had worked on in class which means that it was work that they should have been able to do. It would take no more than a few minutes. I thoroughly agree with homework. My students were used to doing it and didn't complain, much, when they got older. If the work is too hard for your child, maybe you could talk to them about making the homework easier. My question is, if you didn't agree with the homework policy, why did yo send your child there unless it is a public school.

Answer 3

Educational research has shown that this is not a developmentally appropriate practice. Look at the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) guidelines to see what else we are doing wrong in terms of the education of our young children. The problem is that the denigration of society in general is leading to poor results on standardized tests and the like. Instead of addressing the problem, our system has decided that giving kids more "busy work" at a younger age is the answer. Brilliant!

Answer 4

I am with you on this. It's ridiculous that children spend over 6 hours at school and that's not enough time to teach them everything.
Have you talked about it with the teacher and with other parents? Maybe the teacher is not aware how much time it takes to do the homework. Or maybe if the parents unite, they can make the teacher change.

Answer 5

I think they should get homework but it should be kept to a reasonable amount. Kids should be kids and need to be able to do kid stuff. A lot more learning happens on the play ground and at the beach than happens in a class room

Answer 6

I agree with you no child at 5 should have so much homework they cant go to the beach or play outside.

Answer 7

My daughter is five and last year she brought home her work every single night. It is a bit much, but that's how they learn. I understand what you're saying, and I do agree with you, but there's really nothing we as mothers can do about it.

Answer 8

depends how much hw. If it only takes 10 minutes to do it aint that much