simka2 Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 Please help me figure this out in regards to my children. How much time should my kids homework take? I have 2 4th graders and a 5th grader. One of my 4th graders is dyslexic and ADHD (his is rather severe, but he does well on his medication. Unfortunately, his medication wears down towards the evening). I know he will take a bit longer than his twin, but what is too long? At which point do I talk to the teachers? Last night was day one back in ps. It took my ADHD/dyslexic son about 3 hours to complete his homework. I actually asked him to stop doing the work and get ready for bed, but he had a meltdown about not doing what he was told. He really wants to make his teachers happy. It broke my heart to see him up late reading at the kitchen table after all his siblings went to bed. :crying: His twin was assigned less homework and it took less time. I am going to continue to keep an eye on this throughout the week, but I wanted to get some idea on how much is reasonable. Also, he did all of his work sitting right beside me so I could help him and it still took that long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngieC Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 I've always heard the 10 minutes per grade level rule (so 40 mins for the 4th graders and 50 for the 5th) and I feel that is the max of what I would consider reasonable for elementary school kids. I only have a 2nd grader and her homework takes 10 minutes at most. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caroline Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 As I said in the other thread, our school district says 10 min per grade level. However, not even my high schooler has had very much homework, aside from reading. I think part of that is my kids play the ps game well. All of that down time that people talk about? My kids get out their homework and do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roadrunner Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 Are you including the projects into homework time as well? I am finding 10 minute per grade is about right around here as well if you exclude all the insane projects that are being sent home, which parents most likely end up doing. My kids are still young, but my friend's 5th grader is constantly bringing home science and art projects that take several hours to complete in addition to homework. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Word Nerd Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 Neither of my kids has much homework other than math and reading outside of class. They are able to get most of their daily work done at school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snickelfritz Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 I will start off by saying that my 3rd grade dd took much longer on homework at the beginning of the year. She came from homeschooling last year and we just did things differently. Her first spelling sentence assignment took about 15 minutes PER sentence!!! With 20 words, that assignment was a nightmare. She has: Nightly--20 minutes of independent reading, 2nd side of Saxon. Study multiplication facts or timed math fact drills. None on Wednesday nights. Weekly--study 20 spelling words for a Friday test. Write a sentence for each spelling word, due on Friday. We wised up and do these the weekend before and our week is sooooo much easier. Occasional--Social Studies or science or study skills. She has these classes every other day, so we have 2 nights or the weekend to do an assignment (which doesn't happen weekly.). Occasional tests to study for. Monthly book report projects--these vary, but are fairly time consuming. She has several weeks with all instructions to get the project done. I guess my advice would be to look and see if there is anything you can do the weekend before. Our teacher isn't allowed to "assign" homework on Wednesday nights or weekends. But, she makes things available if we want to get a head start. 3 hours a night would be excessive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simka2 Posted January 3, 2012 Author Share Posted January 3, 2012 I will start off by saying that my 3rd grade dd took much longer on homework at the beginning of the year. She came from homeschooling last year and we just did things differently. Her first spelling sentence assignment took about 15 minutes PER sentence!!! With 20 words, that assignment was a nightmare. She has: Nightly--20 minutes of independent reading, 2nd side of Saxon. Study multiplication facts or timed math fact drills. None on Wednesday nights. Weekly--study 20 spelling words for a Friday test. Write a sentence for each spelling word, due on Friday. We wised up and do these the weekend before and our week is sooooo much easier. Occasional--Social Studies or science or study skills. She has these classes every other day, so we have 2 nights or the weekend to do an assignment (which doesn't happen weekly.). Occasional tests to study for. Monthly book report projects--these vary, but are fairly time consuming. She has several weeks with all instructions to get the project done. I guess my advice would be to look and see if there is anything you can do the weekend before. Our teacher isn't allowed to "assign" homework on Wednesday nights or weekends. But, she makes things available if we want to get a head start. 3 hours a night would be excessive. He had the 20 min of reading. 2 Saxon worksheets, front and back...so 4? and he had a double sided fill in the blank/word scramble based on about 10 pages of reading from his health class. That is the one I really had to help him with as it was mainly vocabulary, but he had to find the words in the body of reading. He was a trooper, but it was a lot and all of it was homework. I just received an email from the twins teachers asking if they could stay late a few days to work on math. My other son said, "They do division differently than you." :glare: So I think we are dealing with a hefty combination of different teaching styles, reading issues, and trying to fill in holes coming from homeschooling. It will be interesting to see what they bring home tonight. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 I know he will take a bit longer than his twin, but what is too long? My son also has dyslexia and ADHD and unmedicated (which is essentially what is happening in the evening) it generally takes him 3-5 times longer to do things. Medicated, it's more like 2-3 times longer. Does your son have an IEP or 504 plan in place. The 504 plan is easy (at least it was for us). One of the standard accommodations for kids with speed issues is a reduced homework load. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simka2 Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 My son also has dyslexia and ADHD and unmedicated (which is essentially what is happening in the evening) it generally takes him 3-5 times longer to do things. Medicated, it's more like 2-3 times longer. Does your son have an IEP or 504 plan in place. The 504 plan is easy (at least it was for us). One of the standard accommodations for kids with speed issues is a reduced homework load. I have transferred in his records from his old school, but it is going to be awhile before everything is in place. He had 3 more pages of math homework tonight. He started when they got home from school, continued on the way to dinner, continued on the drive home from dinner. Now we are home, but the meds are completely worn of and he is in total meltdown. I have made him stop working on it, because he is throwing a fit saying he can't do it (in reality he just can't focus, he's burned out and frustrated), but now the fit is worse, because his perfectionism makes him want to finish. I really want to pull my hair out. :banghead: I am trying to reassure him that his teachers are going to work with him, but he is unreachable in this stage. :crying: I know that huge part of this is just adjusting to being in school again. Getting up at 5:45 to meet the bus at 6:30, then he is not home until 4pm when we start the homework. His meds are completely worn off by 6pm...it just hard. Well, now I am rambling. Thanks for just listening to me through cyber space. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Nyssa Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 :grouphug: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 He had the 20 min of reading. 2 Saxon worksheets, front and back...so 4? and he had a double sided fill in the blank/word scramble based on about 10 pages of reading from his health class. That is the one I really had to help him with as it was mainly vocabulary, but he had to find the words in the body of reading. He was a trooper, but it was a lot and all of it was homework. I thought that the homework for Saxon was supposed to be *one* side of one of those worksheets! Also, that word scramble/word finding thing is really bad for a dyslexic (my 15yo son, who is fairly well remediated, would have a terrible time with something like that). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simka2 Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 I understand. What we did was use the teachers' guidelines...quit after X minutes. Usually we'd short the 20 min of reading and the kid would do that in his free time at school, in 5 or 10 minute increments. With a headbanger like that health assignment, I would stop after 10 min and send in a note of explanation. If it really needs to be completed, then it can come home again. To cut off the perfectionism, I told the kid that the school had a rule of 10 min X grade level= hw time, and I was to send his teacher a note if it could not be completed in that time. We learned not to let hw grow out of its alloted time slot. I was glad to have this procedure in the early years, because in fifth, it was 3 hrs of hw for the first few months. Several parents went to the principal and obtained a change -- most of it was work that should have been done in class but wasn't because the teacher wasn't doing her job. She was sending classwork in math and english home for the parents to teach and supervise. So, my btdt is be proactive, interface with teacher, and keep the child from driving himself nuts by insisting that hw is kept to a reasonable time frame. Thank you! That is incredibly helpful. I did send an email last night and we are going to set up a brief conference, hopefully by the end of the week. I thought that the homework for Saxon was supposed to be *one* side of one of those worksheets! Also, that word scramble/word finding thing is really bad for a dyslexic (my 15yo son, who is fairly well remediated, would have a terrible time with something like that). I am starting to wonder if they sent the sheets home in the beginning of the week and that they were not to be returned until the end. :confused: It doesn't help that 3 different ones came back the next day, but I just learned those three did not need to be done until week's end. One twin tried to tell me something along those lines, the other was insistent that it HAD. TO. BE. DONE. :glare: We will get it figured out. It is just nice to know how to approach things. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roadrunner Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 I am starting to wonder if they sent the sheets home in the beginning of the week and that they were not to be returned until the end. :confused: We get homework on Mondays intended for the entire week. Hopefully that explains the quantity:001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilyK Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 When my sons were in public elementary, they had weekly homework and were supposed to do reading most nights (reading log usually; 20 minutes for 5 nights a week). My younger one had attnention and focus problems and I learned that you can not finish homework and the sky doesn't fall in. Bottom line, I would email the teachers, or have your husband email them. Ask the time expectations, talk about your son's ADHD etc, ask what they'd like you to do. Most/all of my kids' teachers would not have wanted that kind of scene happening. The point of homework at that age was mostly to get in the habit, teach some level of time management (if you leave the week's homework til the last night, it is unpleasant) and get the parents involved with and discussing with the kids what they were learning at school. Most of the teachers begged us to let them know if it was too much or causing undue family stress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenbrdsly Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 I've always heard the 10 minutes per grade level rule (so 40 mins for the 4th graders and 50 for the 5th) and I feel that is the max of what I would consider reasonable for elementary school kids. I only have a 2nd grader and her homework takes 10 minutes at most. When I was a public school teacher we said 10 minutes per grade level AND 30 minutes of reading. Teachers should accommodate for ADHD kids. You could have homework situations written into a 504plan if needed. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caroline Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 When I was a public school teacher we said 10 minutes per grade level AND 30 minutes of reading. Teachers should accommodate for ADHD kids. You could have homework situations written into a 504plan if needed. Good luck! I always forget that the 30 minutes of reading does not go without saying. A funny thing about reading logs-- I went to a seminar on parent engagement in low income schools about two years ago. One teacher said that one way she gets parents engaged in their kids' reading is through the reading log. The speaker asked the audience what was wrong with that answer. I raised my hand and said, "Because as a parent of elementary school kids, I am here to tell you that we lie on those reading logs. all. the. time." (Imagine me saying that with my almost southern accent.) The speaker agreed with me. My kids read on average over 30 minutes a day, but there are some nights where soccer practice runs over and the reading gets shortchanged. So I lie on the reading log. Simka2, you can lie on the reading log and it won't kill anyone, I promise, as long as it all averages out in the end... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JennMcNeal23 Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 I agree with jenbrdsly. I've heard from other teachers that this is their goal/norm for homework. Children with ADHD, ADD, etc. shouldn't get special treatment persay but, I would suggest reaching out to your DDs teacher and letting them know about these "I'm going to pull my hair out of my head" moments for you and your childs sake. If something is left unfinished, and you send in a note of explanation, a teacher should understand and extend the due date. It is hard for kids to complete homework especially after a long, tiresome day at school when their medicine is wearing off. In fact, its almost inevitable that they will get frustrated and upset. I would suggest trying to work with the teacher to come to some sort of arrangement....Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penguin Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 I don't know if this will help you or not, but Ending the Homework Hassle by John Rosemond COMPLETELY changed my life On of the tenets of the book is that the rule that homework is DONE by a certain time...finished or not. Close your books and go to bed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simka2 Posted January 6, 2012 Author Share Posted January 6, 2012 Well, we had a good couple days. Then today I got a note home from ds6 teacher asking if I could come and sit with him in school. :001_huh: That was a new one for me. I guess I am going to school tomorrow. ;) I really want to be supportive, but I am unsure that this is a good idea. He is the child who will try to be cute and get out of work. He will do this nicely for a teacher, but with me it is not going to be very pretty. :glare: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jennynd Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 Overall, I think DS7 has reasonable amount homework. It just doesn't divide up right. For example, he had practically no homework last night. Just vocabulary word. The night before, he got 2 pages both side math and 40 pages reading on a RL 5.3 book. He is a good reader but still tool him over an hour to read the book and math on top of that. And May I mention again that he is only 7 years old Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penguin Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 Just keep in mind that the middle and high school teachers have not read this book. They do not coordinate hw expectations and your child will have nights where hw plus study will exceed the slotted time and he'll need to start earlier to get it done. So very true. My strategy has been to help the child figure out when he needs to start so that he is finished by X o'clock. Of course, there were occasional nights that didn't fit the model, but not many. And I really only do this through 10th grade or so. By 11th and 12th grade, they set their own homework schedules. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cera Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 My kids are young (K and 2nd) but right now the second grader does 30 minutes max, the Kindergartener, 15. If they have more than that it simply isn't finished and I send in a note to the teacher. I sat down with her at the beginning of the year and explained that I would cut off the homework after 30 minutes and I expected her not to punish my child for my decision. So far, so good. I don't care about grades at this age as they don't matter long term so a 0 here and there is fine with me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwik Posted July 27, 2012 Share Posted July 27, 2012 I know this is an old post but did it work out ok. Seems to me exercise and some downtime would be far more beneficial to your son (mine too). At five he supposedly has 15 mins a night but he does 90% between school and gym Monday, reading to his brother in the car and spelling while eating breakfast. Luckily it is not in the least bit challeging as yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathwonk Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 (edited) That 10 minutes per grade sounds reasonable to me. As a kid I never had any homework, and it gave me bad study habits for college. So I think everyone should do some, but not a burdensome amount. When our kids were about 7 and 10 we pulled them out of a good quality private school for Fall semester and spent it with them in Italy. (I was a visiting researcher and we lived free in a generous friend's apartment.) My wife did schoolwork with them at most 30 minutes a day, usually less, and the rest of the time they visited museums, took day trips, and played. So some of the learning didn't feel like schoolwork. One day one son asked who invented the automobile so I told him Henry Ford. Then we looked it up in the Larousse French encyclopedia in the well furnished apartment, where we learned that a Frenchman had actually invented it about 30-40 years before Ford. Then we got curious and looked in the Italian encyclopedia and found that, although the Frenchman had built the first model car, that Galileo had designed one much earlier! So it depends who you ask. When we got back to the school they academically were way ahead of the students who had stayed in school and attended all day every day. So it is hard for me to believe that an average school should expect hours of homework per night from a young child. When I taught advanced calculus in the high school at this same private school they fussed at me if I gave more than 30 minutes work a night, which shocked me because I had been told to teach it like a college class. 30 minutes was not enough for that level. There is this great cartoon, probably from the New Yorker, reprinted in one of Harold Jacobs' books, where a patient father is telling a disgruntled son, "when you come right down to it, homework is the basis of civilization." Edited August 4, 2012 by mathwonk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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