Homework over spring break (long)

Cathy Weeks wrote:
Laura Slesinger wrote:

2) You should consider taking your family vacations in the summer,
between
school grades.

Sigh... haven't you heard about summer homework and reading lists?
The
truth is that there is a double standard for kids and adults. When
an
adult takes a vacation, we don't usually have to take work with us.
I
work in a fortune 10 company, and when we take vacations, we leave
our
laptops at home, set our voicemail to alert people about who to
contact
in our absence, and do the same with our email. We also alert people
that we will check email and voicemail WHEN WE RETURN.

And if you own the company, you may not get a real vacation. On the
rare occasion that we go out of town for a week, dh and I are on the
phone a minimum of 30 minutes most days!

I personally think assigning homework over vacation stinks.

Agreed! When I was a kid, I didn't have any homework over summer
vacation, not even reading lists. Of course, I read plenty anyhow -
but that's beside the point.

Irene

Which brings up a question for me. Someone on this group mentioned
the bunk
reasoning for having homework for 1st graders is to get ready for 2nd
grade
and so on for some number of grades. Are there any studies that
demonstrate
more or less "readiness" in say 5th grade, based on the homework of
previous
grades? I had a conversation with DS's preschool teacher about the
appropriateness of homework for kindergarteners for just this reason.
Made
me shiver.

The little I saw online (I did a search for homework effectiveness on
google, and it brought up lots of junk, but some info) suggested that
homework is more effective at the high school level, slightly effective
(in small doses) at the middle school level, and not at all effective
at the elementary school level.

The recommendation was that the amount of homework equal about 10
minutes per grade level. So a first grader should get 10 minutes of
homeowork, a second grader 20 minutes, etc. And the recommendation was
that it cap at no more than 2 hours per night for highschool students.

The thing is, I'm not sure how well an adult can judge how long it will
take a child. I sat down and did spelling words with my 10-year-old
stepson one night, and I could EASILY have finished it (25 words, 5
times each) and about 20 minutes. I know this because I sat down and
wrote the words, too, just to see what it was like. He was relatively
-- though not perfectly -- diligent, and it took him 45 minutes. His
school has a policy that there not be more than 30 minutes of homework
per night, and it often takes him much longer than that. I think they
often go by how long it would take an *adult* to finish that work, not
a kid.

Especially with the little ones, and even with the middle school aged
ones - it's REALLY hard to sit still all day, then have to do it more
at home.

Cathy Weeks
Mommy to Kivi Alexis 12/01

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 14:49:45 EST, "Stephanie"
wrote:

Which brings up a question for me. Someone on this group mentioned the bunk
reasoning for having homework for 1st graders is to get ready for 2nd grade
and so on for some number of grades. Are there any studies that demonstrate
more or less "readiness" in say 5th grade, based on the homework of previous
grades? I had a conversation with DS's preschool teacher about the
appropriateness of homework for kindergarteners for just this reason. Made
me shiver.

http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd...CacheTok=token

or

http://snipurl.com/dq66

Three homework myths have persisted during the past century,
making us unwilling to ask for solid evidence on the benefits of
homework and acquiescent in accepting claims about its
efficacy.

Myth: Homework increases academic achievement. Even
supporters of homework acknowledge the problems of
research on homework. Homework supporter Harris Cooper
acknowledges that "the conclusions of past reviewers of
homework research show extraordinary variability. . . . the
reviews often directly contradict one another" (1989, p. 28).
Most researchers now concede that homework does not
improve academic achievement for elementary students
(Cooper, 1994). Recently, homework advocates have shifted
their focus from homework's questionable impact on student
achievement to homework's alleged importance in developing
traits like self-discipline and time management. According to
these views, developing homework habits early means that a
student will be more disciplined about completing homework
in high school and beyond.

According to Piaget, however, asking children to perform tasks
before they are developmentally ready proves counterproductive
to development. We need to ask ourselves whether homework
falls into this category. Lacking solid evidence, homework
supporters ask us to take on faith the notion that homework can
instill desirable character traits.

Myth: If our students don't do lots of homework, their test scores
will never be competitive internationally. Comparisons of
student test scores often pit U.S. students against students from
other countries. Ironically, the 1995 Third International Math and
Science Study (TIMSS) found that 8th graders in Japan and
Germany are assigned less homework but still outperform U.S.
students on tests (National Center for Educational Statistics,
2001). Japanese schools spend a greater portion of their
budgets on professional development and organize their school
days so that teachers can work collaboratively. Teachers in
Japan are at school eight to nine hours a day, but they teach
only four hours a day. In addition, the Japanese school calendar
has longer school days, longer school years, longer lunches,
and longer recess periods. The Japanese classroom is a
sacred space that does not allow interruptions. We can learn
many lessons from the Japanese system (Rohlen & LeTendre,
1995).

Myth: Those who call homework into question want to dilute
the curriculum and kowtow to the inherent laziness of students.
By calling homework into question, we are not questioning the
work of homework, but rather the value of students completing
that work at home. Students need to complete long-term,
independent projects as part of a rigorous academic program.
They need to learn many skills through drill and practice. They
need time to make new learning their own. Professional educators
need to design rigorous academic work, scaffold new knowledge,
and coach new study habits. The place for such work is in the
school.


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

"Irene" wrote in
oups.com:


Cathy Weeks wrote:
Laura Slesinger wrote:

2) You should consider taking your family vacations in
the summer,
between
school grades.

Sigh... haven't you heard about summer homework and
reading lists?
The
truth is that there is a double standard for kids and
adults. When
an
adult takes a vacation, we don't usually have to take work
with us.
I
work in a fortune 10 company, and when we take vacations,
we leave
our
laptops at home, set our voicemail to alert people about
who to
contact
in our absence, and do the same with our email. We also
alert people that we will check email and voicemail WHEN
WE RETURN.

And if you own the company, you may not get a real
vacation. On the rare occasion that we go out of town for
a week, dh and I are on the phone a minimum of 30 minutes
most days!

i think that depends on the company. we always had at least 2
week long vacations (10 days because of weekends actually)
even from the start-up. he had no other employees besides
himself & my older brother (10) & me (9).
he was *on vacation* when he was not at work. he went fishing
with my grandpa. no phones, no work (ok, he doodled new
inventions, but he can't help that g).
even after he expanded & spun off 3 other new companies, he
was not on call if he was on vacation.
oddly enough, he didn't expect us to do school work if we
went somewhere on February break either, unless it happened
that we missed a day or two of school, in which case we did
assignments for those days only.

I personally think assigning homework over vacation
stinks.

Agreed! When I was a kid, I didn't have any homework over
summer vacation, not even reading lists. Of course, I read
plenty anyhow - but that's beside the point.

i see reading lists as one more way to make kids hate reading.
if you can't even pick your own books, how are you going to
find your own interests? and how do they pick the books for
those lists? i was reading Arthur C. Clark in 2nd garde. being
forced to read something like Junie B. would have bored me to
tears...
lee

On 2005-03-29, Cathy Weeks wrote:
The little I saw online (I did a search for homework effectiveness on
google, and it brought up lots of junk, but some info) suggested that
homework is more effective at the high school level, slightly effective
(in small doses) at the middle school level, and not at all effective
at the elementary school level.

The recommendation was that the amount of homework equal about 10
minutes per grade level. So a first grader should get 10 minutes of
homeowork, a second grader 20 minutes, etc. And the recommendation was
that it cap at no more than 2 hours per night for highschool students.

These seem like pretty good guidelines to me, though of course it
depends on how much time the kids are spending in school. The longer
the school day, the less need there is for homework.

The thing is, I'm not sure how well an adult can judge how long it will
take a child. I sat down and did spelling words with my 10-year-old
stepson one night, and I could EASILY have finished it (25 words, 5
times each) and about 20 minutes. I know this because I sat down and
wrote the words, too, just to see what it was like. He was relatively
-- though not perfectly -- diligent, and it took him 45 minutes. His
school has a policy that there not be more than 30 minutes of homework
per night, and it often takes him much longer than that. I think they
often go by how long it would take an *adult* to finish that work, not
a kid.

The time it takes varies from child to child and from day to day---so
predicting how long it will take is very difficult. I have seen my
son balk at doing some apparently trivial homework, stretching it out
for several hours with nothing accomplished, then finish it in 10
minutes. Other days he has whipped through stuff that I thought would
require a lot of time. A lot of kids have very little patience with
boring drill, and will take forever to complete something that could
be done diligently in a few minutes, just because it is too boring to
concentrate on.

If a student is consistently taking much longer than the the school's
guidelines, it is time for a conference with the teacher to find out
whether the workload expectations are unrealistic or the student has a
study-habit problem that needs to be addressed. If the teacher is not
concerned that the homework is taking much longer than the school
guidelines, it is time to talk with other parents to find out if they
are experiencing the same problems---if so, then the principal needs
to be contacted, and informed that the teacher is not following school
policy.

Especially with the little ones, and even with the middle school aged
ones - it's REALLY hard to sit still all day, then have to do it more
at home.

The problem here may be the "stitting still all day" rather than
"doing it at home". My son's class at school has rearrangements of
the class several times a day, with different groups of kids going to
different classrooms for different activities. There are two
bilingual classes at his grade level. Both classes are about equally
mixed Spanish- and English-speakers, but the two teachers specialize
in different things. One does the Spanish literacy for Spanish speakers
while the other does English literacy for the English speakers. Other
groupings are done for math and for ESL/SSL instruction. All four 3rd
grade teachers are involved in a rotation for science classes, with
each doing a different unit and different groups of students going to
different classrooms for science. A small amount of time is lost in
each transfer to different classrooms, but the frequent movement
during the day probably helps the kids avoid the "sitting still all
day" phenonomen.

------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
(Senior member, IEEE) (Board of Directors, ISCB)
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Affiliations for identification only.

In article , Robyn Kozierok says...

In article ,
Banty wrote:

'Laura' said *consider*. As in, summer vacation travel being *a* way
to travel without taking kids from school. There are also shorter
trips during other break periods. Consider is not the same as "thou
shalt do exactly as I suggest". It is *not* the same as suggesting
that the kids not be taken out for other school breaks.

The context of the thread was a family having problems with homework
during school break. In that context, the suggestion to "consider"
travelling over summer vacation reads as a suggestion to "consider"
travelling during the summer *instead of* travelling during spring break.
In that context, suggesting that one "consider" travelling over the summer
*is* the same as suggesting that one "consider" not travelling during
other school breaks. No, certainly 'Laura' was not saying that everyone
must do as she suggested, but she surely did implicitly suggest it.

Forgive me for forgetting the context of a thread that is almost one year old.
That's part of the reason for my responses (I had to leave Newsguy and go to
Google to get the complete thread).

'Consider' still means consider, though. Perhaps we'll have to await 'Laura's'
second coming (this, being her first to USENET), for some enlightenment on her
intended meaning.

Banty

"enigma" wrote in message
. ..

[snip]
i see reading lists as one more way to make kids hate reading.
if you can't even pick your own books, how are you going to
find your own interests? and how do they pick the books for
those lists? i was reading Arthur C. Clark in 2nd garde. being
forced to read something like Junie B. would have bored me to
tears...
lee

My daughter (4th grade) had an optional reading list this summer.
Some were too easy, some were good. But in general, I do
like *suggested* reading lists. My daughter went through all
the Magic Treehouse books and the Boxcar Children books,
and the Baby-Sitters Club books, and now she's into Lemony
Snickett and Nancy Drew, but she gets bored with the same
old, same old. It's nice to have suggested reading lists of good
books that we might otherwise never have known about.

Bizby

"bizby40" wrote in
:


"enigma" wrote in message
. ..

[snip]
i see reading lists as one more way to make kids hate
reading. if you can't even pick your own books, how are
you going to find your own interests? and how do they pick
the books for those lists? i was reading Arthur C. Clark
in 2nd garde. being forced to read something like Junie B.
would have bored me to tears...
lee

My daughter (4th grade) had an optional reading list this
summer. Some were too easy, some were good. But in
general, I do like *suggested* reading lists. My daughter
went through all the Magic Treehouse books and the Boxcar
Children books, and the Baby-Sitters Club books, and now
she's into Lemony Snickett and Nancy Drew, but she gets
bored with the same old, same old. It's nice to have
suggested reading lists of good books that we might
otherwise never have known about.

my 4 year old has read all the Magic Treehouse books... i'm
starting him on Lemony Snickett next.
are you near a library? browsing the children's section
should give her more ideas for types of books she may enjoy. i
really liked The Diamond in the Window by Jane Langton when i
was your daughter's age (& looking it up on Google led me to
discover it's a series. must buy books!). i also liked field
guides a lot...
i was an avid reader as a kid (i'd read literally every book
in the kid's section of the library by the time i was 9, some
several times). i would have gone crazy without library access

lee

Stephanie wrote:

Which brings up a question for me. Someone on this group mentioned the bunk
reasoning for having homework for 1st graders is to get ready for 2nd grade
and so on for some number of grades. Are there any studies that demonstrate
more or less "readiness" in say 5th grade, based on the homework of previous
grades?

I am unaware of any study showing the value of loading kids
up with homework in early elementary school. There are a couple of
studies showing that when *parents* assign early homework, it is
associated with greater achievement, but as you might imagine, this
is heavily confounded with high parental involvement and expectations.

Best wishes,
Ericka

enigma wrote:
"bizby40" wrote in
:

"enigma" wrote in message
. ..
[snip]
i see reading lists as one more way to make kids hate
reading. if you can't even pick your own books, how are
you going to find your own interests? and how do they pick
the books for those lists? i was reading Arthur C. Clark
in 2nd garde. being forced to read something like Junie B.
would have bored me to tears...
lee

My daughter (4th grade) had an optional reading list this
summer. Some were too easy, some were good. But in
general, I do like *suggested* reading lists. My daughter
went through all the Magic Treehouse books and the Boxcar
Children books, and the Baby-Sitters Club books, and now
she's into Lemony Snickett and Nancy Drew, but she gets
bored with the same old, same old. It's nice to have
suggested reading lists of good books that we might
otherwise never have known about.

my 4 year old has read all the Magic Treehouse books... i'm
starting him on Lemony Snickett next.
are you near a library? browsing the children's section
should give her more ideas for types of books she may enjoy. i
really liked The Diamond in the Window by Jane Langton when i
was your daughter's age (& looking it up on Google led me to
discover it's a series. must buy books!). i also liked field
guides a lot...
i was an avid reader as a kid (i'd read literally every book
in the kid's section of the library by the time i was 9, some
several times). i would have gone crazy without library access

lee

I never had summer reading lists for my kids - perhaps we moved too
often or something. My mom used to take us (my sister and me, now age
67 and age 65) to the local library each week. [I think libraries are
one of the great things about the USA] We were allowed to pick two
books out ourselves and my mom was allowed to take 12 out for herself.
So she picked two for herself and then picked an additional 10 for us.
Some we read ourselves and some she read to us. I do not know (and
never thought about until now) how she picked the books. I know she
also read us books from her childhood like Little Women, Beautiful Joe
and Black Beauty.

When dd#1 was in 4th grade, we lived in a very rural community where
there were two small libraries. One - closest to us but on a state
highway with no shoulders that a kid couldn't safely walk to - was
housed in an old garage. I could get Nancy Drew stories from there,
but of course their selection was limited

The other - a bit bigger and in what I think was a dedicated building
- was a couple of miles away. I took a book on reading for children
that my mom gave me (a classmate of hers had written it), and go up to
the more distant library (I could also get gas up there for the car),
and pick out several books each week to look for that I thought she'd
like. If they didn't have them, I put in an interlibrary loan for it.
Then the next week, they'd be there and we'd take them out and put in
the next request. That child reads and has always read.

Her sister was a more active child, and could read but didn't. When
she was in hs, she had to read a certain number of books and make
reports on them. Fortunately, she was in a non-academic English
class, and the teacher gave them many different report forms and
didn't insist on 'the classics'. I was able (with her agreement) to
pick some spy novels that I thought she'd enjoy. She still doesn't
read, although of course she can. And she reads to her children, and
her children can read and seem to enjoy reading..

I think.that there are two goals for parents - one is to have their
children able to read well with a secondary goal (if possible but less
important) of enjoying reading.

The second goal is to bring them up to appreciate the importance of
reading so that when they have children, they will also be able to
read and know that reading is important.

grandma Rosalie