Should kids do homework?

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by MillerTime GFG

I know this is not necessarily the intent of this thread, but I could use the professional insight:

My 8 year old (soon to be 9) daughter is in grade 4 and has been struggling with some tests early on, mainly in math. After seeing the results on her first (failed) test, I went over it a few times with her before she was to retake the test this past Friday. Sure enough, she didn't do much better. Her teacher wrote on the test "Don't be lazy Alina".

So there lies the problem. Bias aside, she is a smart kid and generally does everything correct when she puts her mind to it, such as when I'm watching over her. She is literally just lazy, and doesn't care about the consequences. Part of that is because I guess there aren't really any at this point, but eventually as she gets further on, there will be. She will leave questions blank because she just doesn't want to actually try to use her brain. We've noticed it being an issue with laziness, and now so too has her teacher.

Any ideas? My thoughts are to just make her do more homework until it starts to translate into better grades. Problem is that unless she's constantly supervised, she will just goof around. And to think she's not even a teen yet...

Just curious, and don't take this as accusatory because it may come off that way. That's not how I intend it. But, do you give her a lot of responsibilities around the house? Does she clean her own room, make her own lunch, remember to pack her own agenda and school books in the morning? Generally grade 4 and 5 kids have difficulty taking responsibility for their learning and their actions because there aren't any consequences for things not being done. They think that if they don't do it, someone else will come along and do it for them.

She's 8 now, so maybe time to give her some more responsibility. Maybe she already has a lot, I don't know your situation, just a common thing for that age is for kids to not take responsibility for their actions.

I teach Grades 5 and 6.

[Azure]

I also think teaching responsibility in other areas will help a child be more responsible in school and in other things the rest of her life.

Which is exactly why assigning mindless amounts of homework is ridiculous. Kids need to develop their mind, and I don't see how doing endless amounts of long division problems at home will do that. Every piece of research I've seen in terms of brain development talks about giving the brain time to absorb and develop understanding. There is a reason adults are told to take breaks when they work on complex problems or projects. We call it 'getting your mind off things'....by going and doing something else. Take a long lunch break, workout, go for a run, play something, hang out with friends, vacation. All these things are designed to remove yourself from 'work'....thus allowing your brain to absorb and develop understanding for what you're working on.

How many of us have been frustrated with something at work that we couldn't figure out, and we left it AT WORK for the weekend, came back Monday morning and were able to figure it out because we have renewed focus?

Kids are the same way. They spend 8 hours in school each day. After school should be spent doing other activities that develop their mind and skills. Even a job is more important than physics homework IMO. If you can't teach a concept to a kid in 90 min, how do you expect them to pick it up after 4 more hours of doing more of the same at home, alone, and with zero help?

It is stupid.

[MillerTime GFG]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

But, do you give her a lot of responsibilities around the house? Does she clean her own room, make her own lunch, remember to pack her own agenda and school books in the morning? Generally grade 4 and 5 kids have difficulty taking responsibility for their learning and their actions because there aren't any consequences for things not being done. They think that if they don't do it, someone else will come along and do it for them.

She does have quite a few responsibilities I like to think, including the ones you mentioned. We're in the process of coming up with a new system to make them more routine though, such as chores around the house. I think maybe incorporating the same routine every day might help.

She is very smart, but uses those smarts in the wrong areas...ie figuring out how she can get out of doing things, even pretending she doesn't know how to do her hw or work in class because she thinks she can just brush it aside essentially. I know she's smart and I don't have blinders on, we're just struggling to get her to apply herself. Apparently she is just like her mother at that age. So worst case, I can just blame the wife.

[DataDoxy]

It is so important to get your daughter engaged in her own learning as soon as you can. In terms of math specifically... the sooner kids "check out" the more gaps they tend to develop which impacts their learning all the way up. Here is what I recommend...

I believe that intrinsic motivation is most desirable so... if you can find something your daughter is truly interested in and build off of this, that would be optimal. For example, what are her interests outside of school? Think hard and pick something she is truly passionate about. Then ask yourself how you can connect this to the math she is learning? Next, try to create an intriguing little project to do at home based on this topic to jump start her participation in learning. (If she is in grade four, she is likely learning about place value for large numbers up to 10,000 as well as learning how numbers compose or decompose for values up to 10,000. However... she may not truly understand how big ten thousand is... try and give her context through the activity you create). Make the project short, interesting, and fun (and again... be sure it connects to something she cares about). I suggest that you do it with her -or at least do some of it with her. When she is done the project, have her share it with you (this is critical!). When she does, ask questions so she can showcase her learning and be sure to comment on her effort (Effort is key to creating motivated learners! It is important you do not say she is 'smart', instead say she worked hard and you are so proud of her for her effort). Then try to extend this experience by and seeing if she would like to turn this little project into something else like a second project or perhaps make a blog or video about it. (I saw a fantastic video blog done by a five year old... kids love this as they can be the start of their own show!) If you don't want her to publish it... she does not have to. An option would be to create a file on a computer or, in a cabinet, where she can keep it. Additionally, if she had the opportunity to teach it to someone, that is ideal! Finally, if her teacher is open to it, have your daughter share this with him/her in some way. Making learning public however you can is important for developing your daughter's sense of pride towards her own learning.

So... my advice again is to start getting your daughter interested and excited about learning math by doing the above project in an attempt to develop intrinsic motivation. Do this more than once if necessary. Then try and connect this to the math she does at school. Personally, I do not recommend extrinsic motivation as using extrinsic rewards can jump start some kids, but research shows that it usually leads to the previous, undesired behaviour reoccurring sooner or later.

In sum, the key to fostering intrinsic motivation are: (a) praising effort not intelligence (b) giving students ownership of their learning, (c) making the learning public, and (d) connecting what students are learning to something they intrinsically care about. (This is especially true for math which many kids think is not conected to anything in the real world).

If you want to read more about motivation and learning, I highly recommend the book Mindset by Carol Dweck, and the book Drive by Daniel Pink.

[MillerTime GFG]

Great ideas, much appreciated. As an update, she told us after dance class last night (at 7:30) that she has two projects due tomorrow (today)! Not to mention, one of the projects, she didn't write down the instructions on how to do so, so she'll essentially be taking a zero on that project.

I sent an email to her teacher and she's going to be sending emails to me when projects are assigned so I can cross-reference whether she put it in her agenda, which I've stressed the importance of that to her.

In your experience, how much can getting caught behind create a snowball effect, seeing as kids are no longer held back a grade? If she's being taught new stuff before grasping the basics, she'll be lost, no?

[DataDoxy]

Falling behind in math is problematic as it impacts students’ ability to learn and perform in mathematics as they progress through school. According to research, early math skills also impacts students’ overall academic ability. For example, a large scale study found that early mathematical skills are a greatest predictor of future math, future reading, AND over-all future academic skills. In fact, early math skills were even more predictive than students’ socioemotional skills, attention issues, and early reading skills (Duncan, Dowsett, Claessens, Magnuson, Huston, Klebanov, Pagani, Feinstein, Engel, Brooks-Gunn, Sexton, Duckworth, & Japel, 2006).

Since early math (pre-school) skills are predictors of fractional knowledge at age ten, and fractional knowledge is the predictor of over-all math performance at age 16, early math skills are critical for learning future math. As such, I do not recommend that student progress through mathematics before they have a solid understanding of what they need to know. If they do, they are at risk of developing a shallow understanding of foundational mathematics concepts which will lead to future gaps in their learning.

My recommendation is that when student start struggling in math, they seek help preferably by a qualified mathematics educator. If they do not get help, research tells us that for most of students, the gaps they have will get bigger and will become more significant as they progress through school. This has been my experience when I was a math teacher, and is my current experience as a mathematics educator who works to remediate gaps in students that struggle. For example, I find that many junior high students that still struggle with multiplication or with fraction concepts have developmental skill gaps that trace back to composition/decomposition, or for some students even trace back to misconceptions or gaps with understanding base ten concepts. I know that early intervention could have remediated these gaps and thus, lack of fractional knowledge and/or weak number sense would not play a factor in these students’ performance in algebra for example. It is important to know that later intervention is still effective but it is much more difficult as students not only need to learn what they do not know, they need to “unlearn” their misconceptions.

Hope this helps.

[PIMking]

Doesn't Finland not have Homework?

Personally I HATED doing it and rarely did it in both college and HS. I carried a 3.0 in College too while not doing it. I did most of it in class but sometimes I had a report to write that I had no choice.

I find that a lot of school teachers seem to get off on how much work the make their students do instead of teaching their students in a better environment, make students enjoy school and they will learn more. Make them dread it by loading up their after school with hours of homework and they will hate it.

[stampsx2]

I hate homework. If parents can come home after a hard days work, sit back and do nothing, then why shouldn't kids do the same.

Kids are in school eight hours a day, that's plenty of time to learn. At home, kids need to learn how to fish, play sports, fix a bike, help a friend. Whatever.