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#71
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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"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 |
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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. |
#76
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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 |
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"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 |
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"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 |
#79
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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 |
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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 |
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