Kindergarten homework

[meg]

Apparently, the amount of homework our 5 year old is doing isn't enough :roll:

After a whole 4 1/2 months of kindergarten he still isn't a fluent reader :o (note sarcasm, lol)

We do sight words and home reading, which can take up to 45 minutes, maybe an hour, if you do all the activities they suggest. In total honesty, I don't make him do it every afternoon. I mean, he's 5, and spends 6 hours a day at school as it is.

Does this sound ridiculous to anyone else - that after a 6 hour day, our 5 yr old still has up to an hour of homework each afternoon, and has been told he needs to practise even more? :shock:

[JoyLynn]

Meg, that sounds totally ridiculous! He's a little boy, for goodness sake! I disagree with teachers giving children a bunch of homework, anyway, and at five... :o I just don't understand that.


Joy [welcomewave]

[luvmy4sons]

That is ridiculous. He will hate everything before he is 6! Reading will become a chore! Some kids aren't even ready to read until 6 or 7; each kid is different. Here is a thought: It is your kid and believe it or not you don't HAVE to do what the teachers tell you to do. Of course I home school, but my neighbor had to put hers back in this past year. She was constantly telling them that her children were NOT going to do this or that because she didn't agree with it. And it worked! You have the power! :lol: They just don't want you to know it!

[meg]

He will hate everything before he is 6! Reading will become a chore!

Yep, yep, yep :(

He told me today "My teacher thinks I'm a bad reader." I asked if she had actually said that, and he said "No, but I got some words wrong and she said I have to practice more at home." :(

To make matters worse, our eldest had the same teacher in kindergarten, and picked up reading really, really quickly, so you can just imagine the comparisons our poor little one has to put up with. Not that it's actually said to him, but he's not thick, he often says he can't read as well as his brother. We just remind him he's 2years younger, and we don't expect him to read as well as his older brother.

[luvmy4sons]

:( AWWW! Poor little guy. Doesn't it just break your heart? My first is gifted and my second is gifted with dyslexia. So even at home he felt badly about himself because he wasn't reading as quickly as he older brother did at the same age. We do a lot of talking about how God has given each different abilities and different gifts. But it still breaks your heart when you see them feeling badly about something they struggle with. I get it! I wish I could give the little guy a great big hug and tell him how wonderful he is. But I am sure you already have! :)

[meg]

I wish I could give the little guy a great big hug and tell him how wonderful he is. But I am sure you already have!

You're so sweet Leslie! Yes, I've told him we're all good at different things. He's much more "physical" than his brother. Better co-ordination, faster (age for age comparison), things like that. However, he still finds it hard. Those big blue eyes just look so sad when he gets a word wrong :(

Angela had at least 2hrs worth of homework each evening...She would literally cry over the work she had to do...I learned that with her teacher, the work that we were forcing her to do every night, wasn't even being looked at by the teacher..Some days the binder never left the book bag :x

[stephwhiz]

Every child learns differently and at a different rate. In kindergarten in our school system after the first 6 weeks of school they have a "small" amount of homework each night. Usually it is writing their name 5 times, or writing the ABC's or numbers or drawing a picture. It is nothing that takes a long time but it encourages parents to spend some time with their children. I also try to read to my child (note I said child, 8 year old can read novels!) each day. But I think an hour of homework each day is way too much!

They also have 4 different reading levels in each class. Maybe he is in the wrong reading level and needs some more help? Just a thought on that. I know from my experience in the classroom some kids catch onto reading really fast and by 3 months into the school year can read really good while others can't read very good by the end of the school year.

Best of luck!

Stephanie

[jamma]

Hmmm... Meg... sounds like you're getting closer to joining our homeschool ranks!

I do respite work with a family once a week, and it just encourages me even more to homeschool. I couldn't even believe the amount of homework their grade one has to do. It's awful! She's exhausted after school and simply doesn't want to do it.

I do find it sad that there's not enough time for teachers to do all the stuff they want to do (through no fault of theirs!!).

[Madre]

Frankly, I don't like the trend toward all day kindergarten. I think a five year old is too young to be away from home all day. So they don't learn to read in kindergarten; they will learn in first grade. :roll:

[JeanineAnne]

Raegan did K in our local Christian Academy. They used ABeka. She went all day everyday. She had around 1-2 hours of homework a night...which we didn't always do. She had homework in preschool too which was "optional", so we almost always opted out.

It was funny. I started homeschooling with the same curriculum and was surprised how much more difficult this school made it. They honestly sent all the worksheets home as homework. It was crazy.

I have to agree....Kindergarten has become a monster and I think in many children it is giving them a strong dislike for school right off the bat. That is so sad.

[breezykc]

I taught...and hardly any of the graduating kindergarten classes are fluent readers! In fact, reading is pushed to have a good fluency in by graduation of 1st grade, not kindergarten....what K does is teach phonics, letter recogition, basic word combo sounds and sight learning, single small words and the build to the nice 5 words a page books in large print...and they just repeat them over and over.....first grade is really where they take all of those basics and put them together for easier reading of words and multiple syllable words! Don't push him or you're right, he'll HATE reading and that would be a shame! Just keep reinforcing verbally and by praise that he's so bright and doing great! To keep it up! A great source to help out that may seem young, but once again reinforces things without making it seem like work is the Leap Frog system/books/games....Check into some fun computer games too, most boys love buttons and computer games, so it seems less like work to them! Sneaky learning! ;-)

[meg]

Thanks ladies :)

Apparently our principal was horrified last year because we didn't have at least 40% of children reading when they started kindergarten :shock: Yep, she wanted a 40% reading rate upon entering kindergarten :roll:

At the moment, I'm spending lots of time reading to him, which he has always loved. Instead of using his sight words like flash cards, we're playing games with them, to make it fun, which is is just lapping up :D

Jamma said:

I do find it sad that there's not enough time for teachers to do all the stuff they want to do (through no fault of theirs!!).

I agree, and I wonder if the pressure is coming from parents (wanting their children to excel from the get go), or from the ed. department? Our school isn't even the most competitive in the area. There are coaching clinics around here for Kindergarten to Year 12 (end of high school), and one school has most of it's kids going to these from Kindergarten. I'm not talking about extra coaching for kids who are struggling and need extra help, it's for "regular" kids to "excel" etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for education and doing their best etc, but signing a Kindergarten child up for weekend coaching? After putting in 5 full days of school? :?

Thanks again for the support ladies - glad I'm not the only one who thinks it's a bit too much :)

[SpiritFilledMomof2]

I was just having a conversation about this subject today with a neighbor. I think it's just horrifying what some of these children are going through. My dd just finished Kindergarten at a public school. I kind of feel lucky in a way because our school district is not pushy at all. We live in a highly hispanic community so most of the children enter K not even knowing how to speak english let alone read it. The focus for them is primarily learning the language. DD did fairly well since she was 1 out of 4 english speaking children in her class. As far as homework, it was given out on Fridays and it was just some simple readers for her to review at home - no pressure - and she didn't even start getting it until about the 2nd month of school. I'm not worried at all about her achieving because she is very smart and picks up on concepts very quickly. I think our society is gone just a little too far in turning our children into little over achievers. I mean really, kids just need to be kids. We should'nt be taking the fun out of their childhood.

[meg]

We got their school reports for Semester 1 this afternoon.

Both were quite good. On our youngest's though, it says he needs to put more effort into reading. His scores were good (they get a 1-4, with 1 being "just beginning to understand concept", to 4 being "working beyond this level") - nearly all his were 3's, which means a solid understanding of the concept. A couple of 2's, but that's it. Just more effort needed with reading. He cried when I told him :cry:. Told me he is trying :?. It said his maths is really good, and he appears to enjoy it, which he confirmed for me.

Our eldest's was great. All 3's and 4's, with "very good" and "outstanding" for effort. Only one problem - his handwriting :(. Says he shows poor pencil control, and needs to practice. He was a bit disappointed - he's 7 :?

On the whole though, they both got good reports :). Both said things like "exudes joy and excitement when engaged in something he enjoys. His joy is contagious" "relates in a positive and relaxed manner to peers" (our youngest) and "can be relied on for valuable contributions to discussions", "very confident mathematician who calculates quickly and accurately", "enthusiastic learner" (our eldest).

So, some things to work on, but on the whole, they're behaving themselves :lol:

It's just, as a mum, it broke my heart to see our youngest crying over his reading effort ..... :cry:

[luvmy4sons]

It's just, as a mum, it broke my heart to see our youngest crying over his reading effort ..... :cry:

:( [cry] Poor little guy! Lots of hugs and praise for you both! [claploud] [cheer] [claphigh] It only matters what the both of you, and dh, and the Lord think, and no one else! [highfive]

[mama4ever]

I have a 25 year old and a 13 and 10 year old. The homework load has grown since my 25 year old got out of school. I homeschooled my 13 year old, with A-Beka K-4, K-5 and 1st grade, before putting her in christian school. I can't get use to the homework load!!!! Teachers give major projects and than regular homework on top of that. We are going to homeschool high school and I'm looking into Bob Jones for that. We are going to keep our 10 year old in Christian school a few more years.

I don't see the need for all this homework!!


[angelpink]

[gen]

Hey Meg, hows it going? Is ds a fluent reader yet? Are you homeschooling YET!!!

[meg]

:lol:

Well, we've just had 3 weeks holidays (2 wks school hols, then we took an extra week to go away with the kids because dh was going away for work - we tagged along). I didn't get him to read much at all, just read lots and lots to him, and lots of general conversations while we were out and about reading signs etc.

So, this is our first week back at school, and he's actually made some progress with his reading :D. He seems to be enjoying it more too, which is wonderful. Probably because the pressure was off for a few weeks, and because he's having some success with it! :)

But no, I'm not homeschooling yet :lol: