I hate homework!

Banty wrote:
In article , (
[snip]
We also had good luck finding non-fiction through the Scholastic book club
forms that the schools send home, although I don't know how international
that practice is. As Banty says, watch out for the gimmicky ones - I find
they tend to be the ones with cartoon drawings. (They seem to get
routinely ignored by the non-fiction lover in my house, which is a bit odd
as comic books are the only thing other than non-fiction that DS reads.)
Anyhow, the ones with photographs or non-cartoon artwork are usually a
much better choice.

Everytime we discuss this, people come out of the woodwork saying "see if you
can get the library to purchase this, purchase that", some of which I did.

But the *point* is - look at how these things have to be chased down, how
*overwhelmingly* books available to elementary school children (therefore the
ones assigned and required) are not those which appeal to children who are more
factual and quantitative in their bent.
[snip]

I don't think Banty's son can have been unusual in liking this sort of
factual book, given the popularity of Horrible History and Horrible
Science in the UK. These books weren't marketed much by the publisher,
they were books that were bought for individual children by enough
people that there were spin-off magazines and TV programs. There is
definately a market for factual books in the primary school age group,
over here, and I would be extremely surprised if it was not the same in
other countries.

Banty's son had a mother who was willing to search out the books her
child liked. But that is what *librarians and teachers* ought to be
doing: finding a broad range of books that appeal to different sorts of
readers.

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three

In article ,
Banty wrote:
In article , (
says...

In article ,
Banty wrote:
In article , enigma says...

Chookie wrote in
news:ehrebeniuk-F69C7B.14083209042008@news:

In article , Banty
wrote:

There is no reason non-fiction books can't be written at a
level for elementary
school students. Including books about science subjects.

Dorling Kindersley had a stack of them, last time I looked.
DS1's favourite book is a DK Science Encyclopedia. Then
there are the Horrible Science books (along with the
Horrible History series, a great way for ghoulish little
boys to learn those subjects). Or Caren Trafford's lovely
books. She has written a social history of sewerage for
children, "Where does the poo go?" (no, I'm not kidding!)
and other books on environmental topics for kids. There's
also Kingfisher books -- I think they have some science
titles.

*some* DK titles are available in the US. the Horrible
Science & Horrible History books appear to also be UK-centric
on a short search & i've never seen a Kingfisher book in the
US either. (looks like i'm in for some international ordering)
i agree the DK books we can get are great & Boo has several
of their history & science titles, but the others are not
books that are readily available or even *known* here... then
you get into the sticky wicket of schools not having enough
funding to buy books for their libraries, or school boards
that certainly wouldn't approve their purchase for assorted
reasons.
while it's *possible* city libraries might have DK books in
their children's section, many (most) small town libraries
don't. they don't have the budget to buy the books *or* the
shelf space to put them. Boo is already known at our town
library for requesting interlibrary loans (which are useless
if you need to research for homework, as it takes a week at
the least to *get* a book)

lee

We do have things like "Magic Schoolbus". Which irritated my son with their
cutsiness and mainly though - WHY oh why do these series (and frankly from the
titles I get the same impressoin about the books Chookie points to)
have to have
the literary gimmick of children running into science facts. And it's kinda
disjoint "looky this, looky that".

Pick up any non-fiction written for adults. It doesnt' have these gimmicks.
There are a *few* of these written in an early-grade reading level for
children
that we saw. The other problem, though, was the apparent inability for
educators and librarians to understand the interest in non-fiction vs. fiction
with historical settings, and those only dealing with select aspects of those
settings. If you go to a school library or children's section of a bookstore
and put in the search keywords "World War II" or "airplane flight" and
see what
you get - a lot of fiction.


The DK Eyewitness series of books is worth the extra effort to try and track
down if you have a child interested in reading non-fiction. Each volume is
slim but packed with great information. We're lucky, in that both the
school and the local library seem to know that the series is one of the
best around and do purchase the books. Would your local libraries be open
to the suggestion of purchasing some? The ones I have around the house
seem to have both CDN and US prices so presumably there must be some
distribution in the US. (I think it is US availability we are discussing
since Chookie has them in AUS, so I'm assuming "elsewhere".)

We also had good luck finding non-fiction through the Scholastic book club
forms that the schools send home, although I don't know how international
that practice is. As Banty says, watch out for the gimmicky ones - I find
they tend to be the ones with cartoon drawings. (They seem to get
routinely ignored by the non-fiction lover in my house, which is a bit odd
as comic books are the only thing other than non-fiction that DS reads.)
Anyhow, the ones with photographs or non-cartoon artwork are usually a
much better choice.

Everytime we discuss this, people come out of the woodwork saying "see if you
can get the library to purchase this, purchase that", some of which I did.

But the *point* is - look at how these things have to be chased down, how
*overwhelmingly* books available to elementary school children (therefore the
ones assigned and required) are not those which appeal to children who are more
factual and quantitative in their bent.


If you have a non-fiction lover, it can be worthwhile to spend some money
on purchasing the books if your household budget allows. Unlike fiction
that tends to get read once, a good non-fiction book on a favourite topic
will be loved for years.

I agree and thats exactly what I did - purchase books. Notably, I did find a
book at my son's level in the summr of 2001 about the attack on Pearl Harbor
which actually described - the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese fleet, the
reason for the surprise, the planes they used, the ones we didn't get off the
ground. (All that can be found in the school about that was a book about the
life of a Japanese American boy in Hawaii and how he *felt*, yadda yadda - my
son did read and report on that in fourth grade.) It put a historical real
context on the attacks of September 11, and he was able to grasp that event
because of the factual background of that book.

But parents running around purchasing books, with a lot of *time* a kid would
read them gobbled up with the homework we're discussing, is not a solution. Its
a mitigation, not a solution.


It is unfortunately a mitigation that has to be made because a parent who
is doing so is in the minority. We've got for one of my children a fairly
sane homework policy. Two nights a week the child has to write (or type)
half of the week's spelling list and the definitions for the words. All
other homework (other than a few projects) is spelling corrections and
math corrections. Do it right the first time, and you are homework free,
which has turned out to be about the best incentive you could get for
a child who detests repetitive work sheets. (The child is in a senior
elementary grade.)

But the other parents don't see it as sensible. They want more homework.
If the teacher isn't willing to provide it the kids are enrolled with
tutoring agencies that will give the homework. Which would be okay, except
they are also the ones lobbying the school and school board while there
seems to be very few espousing less homework. I haven't decided which is
a more horrifying comment to make amongst the other parents - saying that
I don't like homework for the kids or announcing that my kids are allowed
to go to the corner store unsupervised.

Carol

"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article , Donna Metler
says...


"Banty" wrote in message
...
In article ,
(
says...

In article ,
Banty wrote:
In article , enigma
says...


Everytime we discuss this, people come out of the woodwork saying "see
if
you
can get the library to purchase this, purchase that", some of which I
did.

But the *point* is - look at how these things have to be chased down,
how
*overwhelmingly* books available to elementary school children
(therefore
the
ones assigned and required) are not those which appeal to children who
are
more
factual and quantitative in their bent.


If you have a non-fiction lover, it can be worthwhile to spend some
money
on purchasing the books if your household budget allows. Unlike fiction
that tends to get read once, a good non-fiction book on a favourite
topic
will be loved for years.

I agree and thats exactly what I did - purchase books. Notably, I did
find a
book at my son's level in the summr of 2001 about the attack on Pearl
Harbor
which actually described - the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese
fleet, the
reason for the surprise, the planes they used, the ones we didn't get
off
the
ground. (All that can be found in the school about that was a book
about
the
life of a Japanese American boy in Hawaii and how he *felt*, yadda
yadda -
my
son did read and report on that in fourth grade.) It put a historical
real
context on the attacks of September 11, and he was able to grasp that
event
because of the factual background of that book.

But parents running around purchasing books, with a lot of *time* a kid
would
read them gobbled up with the homework we're discussing, is not a
solution. Its
a mitigation, not a solution.

I still believe the biggest problem is that stupid AR computer program.
The
number of tests on non-fiction, non-biography vs fiction is slight, and
the
non-fiction tests seem to be very trivial (one I recall on a book about
dinosaurs asks what color a dinosaur was in an illustration. The child is
supposed to take this test without having the book in front of them.).
I've
tried to do teacher-made tests on some non-fiction books when I've had
students who were heavy non-fiction readers, and it's hard to come up with
a
good test that's book-specific without getting into minutae, and I truly
think that Renaissance Learning just plain doesn't try.

But I don't think the NYS schools are doing that specific program, else it
would
have been discussed with me especially in second grade when the reading
issue
came to a head. Indeed my son's second grade teacher proudly pointed to
her
*own* collection of books. The special reading teacher and I actually
went
through that collection and pulled out a book about volcanoes, a book
about
sharks - that was about it.

But even going to the Barnes and Noble came up with slim pickings for a
second
to fourth grade reader for non-fiction. There's a historical series or
two
(heavy on biographies), some science stuff which is heavy on illustration.
And
searches of the B&N database was still overwhelmingly, for example for
WWII -
books like the Snow Goose. Its as if adults trying to learn about WWII
only
could find Herman Wouk's Winds of War and stuff like that.

So I think its much more pervasive than the AR stuff you're talking about.

A lot of the science books I'm finding on the early elementary reading level
are actually labeled as reading series, but have non-fiction content, so
maybe the problem is where it's shelved? So far, my daughter's interests
tend to be life sciences, which may just be easier to find, but I haven't
had too much trouble finding decent non-fiction so far, in part, I admit,
because our local library does a really good job of separating it out. It
might be that if she were interested in something that isn't as normal of a
young kid interest, there wouldn't be as much.

I do know our school library is quite sparse in general-but I also know we
probably haven't bought a book for 10 years which wasn't on an AR CD-ROM.
Which means a lot of investment in series books, popular kids fiction and
the like-and little in any other genre.

If your child's school hasn't bought into AR-count your blessings. I don't
know of a single one around here, public or private, which doesn't either
use it or Reading Counts (which is essentially the same thing, but since
it's published by Scholastic, is strongly tilted towards their books)-the
only difference is how much it's been emphasized.





Banty

Banty wrote in
:


We do have things like "Magic Schoolbus". Which irritated
my son with their cutsiness and mainly though - WHY oh why
do these series (and frankly from the titles I get the same
impressoin about the books Chookie points to) have to have
the literary gimmick of children running into science
facts. And it's kinda disjoint "looky this, looky that".

if you think Magic Schoolbus is bad, look at a few of the
Magic Treehouse books! not only are they cloyingly cute, the
"facts" they present are frequently *wrong*. Boo started an
interest in them at 4, when he was prereading. I read one & it
drove me so crazy having to stop & correct things that i
refused to read them to him, so if he wants those read at
beadtime he has to talk to daddy. mommy will not read those.

early readers aren't stupid. things don't have to be dumbed
down. look at the prereader & level one books on dinosaurs.
they put in pronunciation for the 'big words'. other subjects
could be written about the same way, but apparently the only
thing little boys are supposedly interested in is dinosaurs
(and maybe trucks). there are no similar books on aircraft or
the World Wars. nothing on science or biology. why not?
lee
--
Last night while sitting in my chair
I pinged a host that wasn't there
It wasn't there again today
The host resolved to NSA.

In article , Penny Gaines says...

Banty wrote:
In article , (
[snip]
We also had good luck finding non-fiction through the Scholastic book club
forms that the schools send home, although I don't know how international
that practice is. As Banty says, watch out for the gimmicky ones - I find
they tend to be the ones with cartoon drawings. (They seem to get
routinely ignored by the non-fiction lover in my house, which is a bit odd
as comic books are the only thing other than non-fiction that DS reads.)
Anyhow, the ones with photographs or non-cartoon artwork are usually a
much better choice.

Everytime we discuss this, people come out of the woodwork saying "see if you
can get the library to purchase this, purchase that", some of which I did.

But the *point* is - look at how these things have to be chased down, how
*overwhelmingly* books available to elementary school children (therefore the
ones assigned and required) are not those which appeal to children who are more
factual and quantitative in their bent.
[snip]

I don't think Banty's son can have been unusual in liking this sort of
factual book, given the popularity of Horrible History and Horrible
Science in the UK. These books weren't marketed much by the publisher,
they were books that were bought for individual children by enough
people that there were spin-off magazines and TV programs. There is
definately a market for factual books in the primary school age group,
over here, and I would be extremely surprised if it was not the same in
other countries.

Banty's son had a mother who was willing to search out the books her
child liked. But that is what *librarians and teachers* ought to be
doing: finding a broad range of books that appeal to different sorts of
readers.


...and giving broader exposure to those for whom those aren't the favorite kinds
of books. For example I was asked - why shouldn't my son be interested, or at
least do some thinking about - how a Japanese American boy in Hawaii felt in
1945? True, true. But by the same token - why shouldn't other students know
that Mitsubishi has been around a long time building airplanes for Imperial
Japan?

Banty

Of course the question is: *why is there such emphasis on speed and drilling
when you can buy a cheap, accurate calculator anywhere these days? *What
exactly is the purpose of all this drill? *I don't disagree with the thorough
teaching of basic maths, but the overemphasis on drill, in this day and age,
seems a bit weird. *It reminds me of my Mum's Catholic education in the 1950s. *
Mum can tot up a column of figures faster than anyone I know, but while it was
still a marketable skill back then, it isn't now.

In part, it's because to use a calculator you need to put the right
stuff in and you learn that by doing the sums yourself, without a
reasonable amount of drill on the basic stuff, doing the harder stuff
yourself becomes even harder, so doing long multiplication becomes
much harder if you don't have the basic multiplication tables down,
even there is no need to spend as on the practicing of long
multiplication. The drilling also breeds familiarity with numbers that
is very helpful with basic algebra, you need to be able to spot common
factors of small numbers, that familiarity comes from drilling,
playing, using, not tapping them in to a calculator.

My perception is that IRL, you don't see people pulling out
calculators left right and centre, to do a sum that is tricky in your
head, but speeded up by a calculator, more that they just don't do the
sum for a whole combination of reasons.

Cheers
Anne

Banty wrote:
...

My main skepticisms about the voucher plans are the "Field of Dreams"
assumptions - that schools will somehow pop up and they would be better. And
that the main beneficiaries will be existing, largely *religious* schools (which
already are enjoying effective government subsidies in their tax free status)
which are serving select groups of students with parents already able to pay.

Public schools are also tax-free, just like religious schools.

Banty

In article
,
Beliavsky wrote:

How do you and Chookie define a "multicultural" school? Is it having
students of many ethnicities, a multcultural curriculum, or both? What
does a multicultural curriculum entail?

I meant a school like the one DS1 attends. Students of many different
cultural backgrounds. IME it is a reasonable predictor of respecting
difference. The children don't seem to be so dominated by fashionable TV
shows, either -- at least, not in Year 2.

Australian schools have a set curriculum set at state level, and ours
recognises that not all students are Anglo, of Christian faith-heritage, or
living in nuclear families. You can see it in the range of books in the
classrooms and library ('A visit to the mosque' or whatever). I note a
similar range in the book-list for the Premier's Reading Challenge.

I am very skeptical of
anything labelled "multicultural", because in practice it often
amounts to diminishing the achievements of Whites, especially White
men, and pretending that flaws in Western societies are not present in
non-Western ones.

What does it mean when you capitalise White like that? Can you give an
example of this diminution of achievements? I can't say that I've seen it
myself.

Multiculturalism, in Australia, is an official government policy. To quote
from an educational website:

"In place since 1973, this policy respects and values the right of all
Australians to express and share their individual cultural heritage within a
cohesive and harmonious society, and within an overriding commitment to the
basic structures and values of Australian democracy.

Government strategies, policies and programs have been implemented to promote
social harmony among different cultural groups, optimise the benefits of
cultural diversity for all Australians and make our administrative and
economic infrastructure responsive to the rights, needs and responsibilities
of different cultural groups. These have focussed on access and equity to
public services, equal opportunity in employment, creation of the Special
Broadcasting Service (SBS) and productive diversity. Productive diversity
promotes utilising Australia¹s language and cultural diversity for the
economic and social benefits of all Australians."
(http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au)

Of course, our policy is in some ways a recognition of the true nature of
Australian society (we were never monocultural). I cannot comment on how the
term is used elsewhere.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/

In article ,
enigma wrote:

*some* DK titles are available in the US. the Horrible
Science & Horrible History books appear to also be UK-centric
on a short search & i've never seen a Kingfisher book in the
US either. (looks like i'm in for some international ordering)
i agree the DK books we can get are great & Boo has several
of their history & science titles, but the others are not
books that are readily available or even *known* here... then

How does Amazon.co.uk look from where you are? I got an order from them in a
reasonable time.

while it's *possible* city libraries might have DK books in
their children's section, many (most) small town libraries
don't. they don't have the budget to buy the books *or* the
shelf space to put them. Boo is already known at our town
library for requesting interlibrary loans (which are useless
if you need to research for homework, as it takes a week at
the least to *get* a book)

Correct -- my library also says it will take about a week. Most of that time
is taken up by the postal service. Have you talked to the school librarian
about the science books available?

Ahhhh -- remember the How & Why Wonder Books? :-)

I had a quick look at the Smithsonian, but they have a no online shop atm. I
would have thought NASA sold books, but couldn't spot anything on the site.
Try the National Geographic, Scientific American, and the shop at your nearest
natural history museum.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/

In article , Banty
wrote:

Dorling Kindersley had a stack of them, last time I looked.
DS1's favourite book is a DK Science Encyclopedia. Then
there are the Horrible Science books (along with the
Horrible History series, a great way for ghoulish little
boys to learn those subjects). Or Caren Trafford's lovely
books. She has written a social history of sewerage for
children, "Where does the poo go?" (no, I'm not kidding!)
and other books on environmental topics for kids. There's
also Kingfisher books -- I think they have some science
titles.
We do have things like "Magic Schoolbus". Which irritated my son with their
cutsiness and mainly though - WHY oh why do these series (and frankly from
the
titles I get the same impressoin about the books Chookie points to) have to
have
the literary gimmick of children running into science facts. And it's kinda
disjoint "looky this, looky that".

No, the publishers I've mentioned are a bit better than that!

The other problem, though, was the apparent inability for educators and
librarians to understand the interest in non-fiction vs. fiction
with historical settings, and those only dealing with select aspects of those
settings. If you go to a school library or children's section of a bookstore
and put in the search keywords "World War II" or "airplane flight" and see
what you get - a lot of fiction.

That's why you have to TALK to the librarian -- we can't help you if we don't
know what you want! (I take it there was no obvious way to limit to
non-fiction in the catalogue you were using -- there might, however, have been
a way known only to the staff.)

I find this absence of scientific writing for children quite odd in a country
as large as yours -- looks like I've found a second career for you all.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/