How long does homework take for your elementary student?...

[IADad]

I am so disheartened by this conversation.

My son goes to a private school, in a state that historically scores hgihly on standardized test (of course we practiaclly invented standardized tests...so take that for what it's worth....) and is regarded as a generally pretty good state for education...

Some of the stadards set forth here make me feel like telling my child, "give up now and prepare for a career eating boogers at the bus station..."

My son, who you may know from other posts is struggling with reading, came home with a 78% math test score, which we reviewed, some of his mistakes were failing to read the question acurately, and he tells me he's "worried about failing 3rd grade."

I swear there are days I just don't want to do this anymore. I mean, here's a kid who nails his multiplication facts, has just started division facts, and "gets it" and he's worried about failing...I really don't want to rachet up his homewokr/practice time any more...is there no time left for a kid to be a kid?

He's full of wonder and we talk and research answers to stuff all the time, just yesterday we talked about word endings, jet con trails, clouds and why thesun reflecting looks different, how it can rain when it's below freezing, why pancakes puff up, the history of the Green Bay Packers, he showed me a story he wrote and wants to publish on his own google docs and the picture he drew to go with it and we talked about the different ways to get a picture into an electronic document...this is not a kid who's going to fail at anything. Maybe I just need to realize that I've placed a higher value on him learning idfferent stuff in different ways than I have on him nailing the tested skills of the grade level above him, that maybe he's not going to scorre a perfect SAT and that academic scholarship to Notre Dame is more likely to be loans at a state university, and maybe I just need to be good with that.

 

[Jeremy+3]

I guess I find it strange that you guys can pass or fail years, here no one passes and no one fails, being held back simply does not happen.

 

[LizBaker]

here they give them too much homework... usually takes all the afternoon to complete all!

 

[IADad]

I guess I find it strange that you guys can pass or fail years, here no one passes and no one fails, being held back simply does not happen.

realistically, it rarely happens here either. Being held back, I think, is usually a decisions to repeat a grade, most usually a lower grade, because the parents, teachers and admin agree that it would be in the student's best interest.

I think the whole conept of failing a grade comes more from the stress of succeeding, of test scores, grades, etc.

 

[MomoJA]

I guess I find it strange that you guys can pass or fail years, here no one passes and no one fails, being held back simply does not happen.

I don't quite understand what you mean. How do you matriculate? Are all your classes multi-level? What happens if a student is not mastering the content and therefore won't be able to handle the content in the next level? I'm very interested in this. It sounds fascinating.

 

[yeojungi]

He's full of wonder and we talk and research answers to stuff all the time, just yesterday we talked about word endings, jet con trails, clouds and why thesun reflecting looks different, how it can rain when it's below freezing, why pancakes puff up, the history of the Green Bay Packers, he showed me a story he wrote and wants to publish on his own google docs and the picture he drew to go with it and we talked about the different ways to get a picture into an electronic document...this is not a kid who's going to fail at anything.

Your son sounds like a gifted child to me. Have you done some research on gifted children with learning differences?

I must admit that there are days I feel like my child is a creative genius and other days I feel like she is not up to her age expectations. I believe it's not just us.

 

[mnparent78]

Our kids' teacher has been really good about setting a 30 min limit for the 3rd graders and one night a week is supposed to be just reading together and writing a sentence about what we read. I don't think I could keep their attention for much longer than that.

 

[mnparent78]

I guess I find it strange that you guys can pass or fail years, here no one passes and no one fails, being held back simply does not happen.

I worked in England for a year after college and I couldn't believe that 'social promotion' is used so much. There are kids who just need another year to reinforce (or "revise" as they say in the UK) their skills. Passing them along to secondary isn't doing them any 'favors'.

 

[Jeremy+3]

I worked in England for a year after college and I couldn't believe that 'social promotion' is used so much. There are kids who just need another year to reinforce (or "revise" as they say in the UK) their skills. Passing them along to secondary isn't doing them any 'favors'.

We don't have social promotion, it was removed when I was at school about 30 years ago!

 

[mnparent78]

We don't have social promotion, it was removed when I was at school about 30 years ago!

What I mean by social promotion is moving a pupil along to the next year even if they haven't successfully learned the skills required of that year. By that definition England certainly uses social promotion. I don't know about Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. I saw many year six students scoring abysmally on their SATS (not the American S.A.T.s but a UK test for primary school children) but were moved to secondary anyway.

 

[yeojungi]

We end up doing 30 minutes of math fact practice.

I would like to elaborate/ revise my earlier posting. I realized yesterday as I was giving my daughter a math fact practice for her homework, it took her less than 10 minutes. It did take us 30 minutes or more when she was new to multiplication facts and I was too ambitious. She had to solve the multiplication by skip counting therefore took a long time. As she has memorized the math facts, she solves the same number of questions in a lot shorter time period.

Perhaps the 30 minute drills left me a stronger impression than 10 minute drills that I thought her homework takes a lot longer than it actually does.

 

[Jeremy+3]

What I mean by social promotion is moving a pupil along to the next year even if they haven't successfully learned the skills required of that year. By that definition England certainly uses social promotion. I don't know about Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. I saw many year six students scoring abysmally on their SATS (not the American S.A.T.s but a UK test for primary school children) but were moved to secondary anyway.

We don't have social promotion in England (qualified teacher here) or the rest of the UK, it doesn't really matter if a student does bad in an exam (especially one that is solely designed to test teachers, not students), because getting a good grade does not reflect understanding, it merely reflects parrot fashion learning which doesn't benefit students at all(which is why children in private school get the highest grades but are most likely to fail in higher exams where understand is required). If I wanted to I could ensure that all my students received the highest sat level, but that doesn't mean they understand it.

We don't have skills required for any years, because unlike in other places we care about the students personal progress, so it doesn't matter if it takes them too years longer to grasp fractions or what ever, they are given the freedom to develop in their own time instead of being stressed into thinking they are a failure for not instantly grasping a concept.

 

[MomoJA]

We don't have social promotion in England (qualified teacher here) or the rest of the UK, it doesn't really matter if a student does bad in an exam (especially one that is solely designed to test teachers, not students), because getting a good grade does not reflect understanding, it merely reflects parrot fashion learning which doesn't benefit students at all(which is why children in private school get the highest grades but are most likely to fail in higher exams where understand is required). If I wanted to I could ensure that all my students received the highest sat level, but that doesn't mean they understand it.

We don't have skills required for any years, because unlike in other places we care about the students personal progress, so it doesn't matter if it takes them too years longer to grasp fractions or what ever, they are given the freedom to develop in their own time instead of being stressed into thinking they are a failure for not instantly grasping a concept.

Not to belabor a point, but that is the definition of social promotion - moving a student along based on age rather than concept mastery.

I'd agree about the arbitrary nature of a lot of the tests out there, but if an assessment is properly designed, then any student who does not "pass" it needs reinstruction, and I would think it would be malpractice not to offer that.

 

[buddylovebabi]

I'm going to go ahead and say this is about homework not standerdized testing! I have a GREAT deal more of an opinion on that, but I will make another post for it since it seems to be a hot topic!! look for it comming up in the education chat.

 

[Jeremy+3]

Not to belabor a point, but that is the definition of social promotion - moving a student along based on age rather than concept mastery.

I'd agree about the arbitrary nature of a lot of the tests out there, but if an assessment is properly designed, then any student who does not "pass" it needs reinstruction, and I would think it would be malpractice not to offer that.

It isn't actually (you have also failed to take note that in the UK classes are of mixed ages, not a singular age), social promotion is to move after failure, e.g. failing all your AS-Levels and being allowed to take your A-levels even though previous failure means future goals cannot be achieved. Social promotion is where previous problems are ignored, instead of being worked upon. You clearly haven't seen SATS for a while either, they're not based on the standard curriculum, so what a child learns within the classroom will not be within their SAT paper, it is a test of security as it is aimed at monitoring the quality of the teacher.

 

[MomoJA]

It isn't actually (you have also failed to take note that in the UK classes are of mixed ages, not a singular age), social promotion is to move after failure, e.g. failing all your AS-Levels and being allowed to take your A-levels even though previous failure means future goals cannot be achieved. Social promotion is where previous problems are ignored, instead of being worked upon. You clearly haven't seen SATS for a while either, they're not based on the standard curriculum, so what a child learns within the classroom will not be within their SAT paper, it is a test of security as it is aimed at monitoring the quality of the teacher.

Actually, I had asked if you had multi-level classes in an earlier post on this thread, but it wasn't answered. And I'm not referring to what you are calling SATS. As I said, I'd agree that many tests are arbitrary.

At the risk of sounding argumentative, I'd beg to differ with your definition of social promotion. Social promotion occurs when there is no "test" a student must pass in order to move to the next level. I have MAJOR problems with those tests, but they were implemented, in part, to stop the practice of social promotion.

I'd like to hear more about the multi-level class and how it works. I don't see that it would answer all the issues that might arise when a child is struggling with content, let's say at the top of that multi-level, and then must be moved on to the next multi-level because he/she has spent his allotted time in that level. But it is certainly a start. I've actually taught in a k-12 where there was a 1-2 and a 3-4, but I didn't pay too much attention because I'm a high school teacher and I didn't have a child at the time, so I didn't think it had anything to do with me. However, I do remember the 1-2 teachers discussing some of their older students, worrying that they would not be able to handle grade 3.

I'd also like to address the term "failure." That's an outdated way of saying being "held back." When a student "repeats a grade" here in the US in elementary school, it is because the teacher, parents, ancillary staff, etc., have decided that the child would benefit from reinstruction, either due to lack of ability/skills gained, or probably maturity. In high school, students actually do fail and must repeat a subject, not the entire grade.

 

[yeojungi]

Yesterday, my second grader's homework was writing a recipe that includes fractions. They have been learning about fractions and I guess the teacher wanted to give a homework that connects math and language art. We had a cook book for children and my daughter chose "Sizzling Chicken Fajita." That specific menu had a list of tools and ingredients, and then 20 steps of preparing, cooking, and serving. The kiddo wanted to type the whole thing. I suggested a simpler menu with 5 steps (salad), but she was sure she wanted to do the 20 step recipe. So, I said sure. It took her a hour to type down a half the recipe, taking two bathroom breaks, and daydreaming, struggling to type with both hands... The homework is a two-day assignment. She will finish the rest tonight.

I believe it was the right thing to do to let her choose the menu but the homework became more challenging than necessary. Would you do it differently if it was your child?

 

[IADad]

I believe it was the right thing to do to let her choose the menu but the homework became more challenging than necessary. Would you do it differently if it was your child?

No, I'd probably do the same thing. Why squelch their desire to do something. I guess I'd only have strongly encouraged them to modify the goal, if it was due after one night, or the scope they picked was bigger than the two nights allotted.

 

[Ariana]

It all depends on how quickly your child picks up the curriculum. My son got all A's in grade school, and never had to lift a finger. He would do his homework between classes, and do his huge projects in about 10 minutes. But now that he is in high school, he gets about 3 hours of homework per night, and isn't that used to it.

Overall, I think the most homework my son got in grade school was an hour and a half in one night because he put off a project. The average time was...5 minutes

 

[irishcollinsgir]

Developmentally appropriate homework times would be 10 minutes a night per grade level. So a first grader should be assigned homework that takes no longer than 10 minutes and a 4th grader should be assigned homework that takes no longer than 40 minutes. Of course, there are always varying factors. My first grader does his homework but then I also have him study his spelling words. This prolongs the time he spends on home work. Also, my 4th grader struggles in math so this takes a bit longer. I have a fifth grader who is gifted. Her homework is done in less than 10 minutes and correct. If you feel your child is spending too much time on homework I strongly recommend talking to the teacher. I am a teacher and I don't want my students or their parents hating school and homework. I would rather the parent talk to me so that we can work it out. Good luck to all.