How am I ever going to get my kid to do homework ??

Reading daily should be standard. Don't use the words homework and read with her when suits. So if she's tired before bed do it when she gets in from school or before dinner. Do a max of 2 pages even if you read one yourself. She's only 5, I'd keep it light with no pressure at this stage. If the school books are boring then read other books. I bought the Biff, Chip and Kipper books ( oxford teading tree?) for my son and he engaged with them much better. He enjoyed reading about the adventures the kids got up to.

Please take the teacher's advice and stop forcing it.

Read books with your child that have interesting stories and decent vocabulary. Run your finger along under the text as you read. Make your delivery engaging, with different voices and plenty of expression.

My son hated homework in primary school and the quality of it was awful so he never really did any. Now he's in secondary he does his homework fine as it's sensible homework, research this, make a poster on that. Don't worry, the less pressure the better do what your child prefers in terms of extra curricular work. Also my issue with primary homework is the teachers don't mark or check it.

I had (still have!) reluctant (dyslexic) readers. One also has other ND issues. Reading is hard work for their brains and school frazzled them enough.

I did lots of reading with them. Reading to them. Different types of books and texts. Poetry was great for nights when everyone was burned out.

For DS1, reading clicked when I bought some Star Wars easy readers when he was 6. It was the first time books had really piqued his interest. Being autistic, he favours non-fiction and niche subjects. DS2 loves stories and being read to, but just struggles to do it himself. By later junior years we did a lot of audio books to get through novels that he could understand but found too mind-blowing to read himself.

Both are thriving at secondary school. Homework in general was a struggle at primary, and a totally lost cause after the torture of months and months and months of battling "home learning". They just weren't mature enough to cope. But they have both got to grips with it at secondary. DS1 has a reading age of 16 (goodness knows how!) and DS2 has now caught up to average and has had tutoring to support his English skills that through dyslexia and 6 months of lost learning were still gappy.

The biggest thing is that we tried to keep reading light, interesting and fun to their needs. It wasn't ideal, but they've still got a lot from what we did. They love learning and have curious minds and great vocabularies, fed by a variety of media, conversation and going to varied places. I can't make reading easy for them and magic them into bookworms like I was, but I have fed their brains.

The odds were stacked against us and we did our best with our circumstances.

Most reluctant 5 year olds are tired and not quite mature enough rather than a major issue. The most important thing is to keep reading pleasurable. If that means reading to her or using audio, that's still beneficial. Just don't turn it into a miserable slog.

Definitely just 10 minutes@srslhw. It needs to be an easy win to get the treat. You can very gradually increase it by a tiny little bit once she's used to the routine.

But the treat needs to be the thing. A reward. (Not that I use this technique on MYSELF at all 🙄)

If she is reluctant to read, the books are probably too hard/long. It should only take her 5-10 mins, if its taking longer its too hard.

Try asking the teacher for a couple of easier ones, better easy reading than no reading or a battle.

When it is pitched at the right level there should be a lot less resistance.

We struggled getting our DD to read. In reception and Y1 the books are just so simple they are also boring. Our DD complained massively about reading, it was getting to be a bit too much of a battle so we backed off, and hoped that she'd get better and eventually would be able to read something actually interesting and would start to enjoy it.

Fortunately, that's pretty much happened. I think she's still a bit behind in reading vs where I'd like her to be, but she doesn't resist it any more and her reading is basically ok - and presumably will get better with more practice.

Sometimes they’re just not ready, and when they are it just snaps into place.

I had one that hated phonics, with an unparalleled passion, and just didn’t seem to make the connection at all. I read all the books that were sent home, cuddling on the sofa, without any particular demand on him. One day, he took the book out, flipped through it, and announced there was no need for me to read it because he’d read it himself. I turned a blind eye the first time, but he kept doing it. I was sure he was pretending, so I’d ask him a couple of questions about it, which he answered confidently. He’d gone from baffled to being a flipping speed reader. Went on to be a complete bookworm.

My other one hated worksheets and colouring in preschool. She would just drop the crayon or pencil and go “searching” under the table to drag it out. She was a master of avoidance tactics. We reduced hours, so she got more of the play, music and social activities and spread her entitlement across two years. People told me she’d never be ready for a full school day, etc but she just needed a slower start. Once she was ready for it, she flew, She has a shelf of notebooks of her hand written short stories and half finished novels.

There’s more than one way of supporting dc, and sometimes reducing the pressure for a while is what they need.

She’s 5! I thought you were going to say year 7. At thus age you need to inspire a love of learning, so just read to her books she enjoys. Eventually she will want to read herself. Pressure wont help.

Buy the comics that follow the phonics, I used to buy ds the Cbeebies one, there were stories with stickers, characters he would be familiar with, puzzles things to learn to form letters. Reading doesn't just have to be school reading books.

Get into a routine, it becomes a habit.

start with a snack first. A hungryish child will not concentrate. Then move on to sitting at the table with doing some sort of work.

do the reading as part of bedtime routine so it doesn’t feel like work, and becomes something she looks forward to.

I had no idea that children got homework at such an early age nowadays. Homework started in secondary school when I was a kid.

I feel quite sorry for them.

We have a set routine and it's non negotiable. We have tea, then DS stays at the table to complete reading. Keep it short and positive. Sticker in the reading journal. He can only leave the table, have pudding, watch tv etc. after this is done.

After school, drink and snack, 15 mins max doing bits of reading etc. Any book she likes. Or sums or chatting about a topic.
Ask her if she wants to get changed first, or after. Set the timer. Then get the school and pe bag ready together and that's it. Time extends as they get older but the habit is there.

My dd hated the school books. So did I. We always treated ourselves with a better one afterwards:)

We did it in the morning and when we got onto stuff like numbots, the deal was three good tries (because attitude is key to success amd more important than ticking something off).

We never do TV on school days either because we found that episodes was a hiding to a poor attention span and tantrums because they just want to get to that.

So it was a mix of setting expectations, routine and consequences for poor behaviour. Rewards were for longer effort milestones e.g. completing the reading challenge (with a book!), a stage of numbots etc.

As reading improved, we modelled the behaviour of reading for pleasure and instilled a quiet time after getting home, snacks and getting changed, of sitting down to read our respective books together.

Even with all this positive sounding stuff, there were still hellish days with battles of will.

Hang in there and don't pressure yourself, most kids aren't doing times tables til year 2 or 3 😆

She’s only 5. You’re getting nowhere with your current approach and the teacher has advised you to leave well alone. A solid routine of reading bedtime stories is more than enough. There is plenty of guidance online about how to read bedtime stories. If you want to make it more enriching and help her reading and comprehension, there are ways of reading stories with her that go beyond just reading the words aloud to her.

But you already have your answer right here…

She’s doing fine with reading and the teacher has expressly told you to just leave it be. You’re going to trample her love of reading by getting stressed and trying to cajole her into it. Honestly, she’s 5. Leave her be. Just read bedtime stories with her.

Would she be receptive to turning the words into a game?

For example write down the words onto card and put on the floor. Roll a dice and she has to jump that many times. Each time she lands in a card she has to say the word/sound whoever gets to the other side of the room wins. You do it with the same words and deliberately get them wrong and get her to tell you the correct word. Alternatively a sick puppet eats the words and spits them back out.

She's 5. Don't stress it. Just enjoy reading to her. The idea is to foster a love of books not turn it into a battleground which is counterproductive Btw with times tables I used to play a CD of them in the car all the time. Kids picked them up simply through that.

You need to get to a point where it is part of your routine.

To get to that point, use bribery. A tangible reward once the task is done. Sweets work but I know the MN attitude to sweets!

Have the reward out in front of you both while she does her reading / homework. Tell her before she starts how much she has to do ("Look! Just 2 pages and then you can have X.")Do the same thing every day. Eventually the routine will bed in and you won't need to give a big reward every time.

Reading really needs to be little and often. Before school for 5 minutes. After school. Bedtime.

Mine also like activity books. The like CGP books. Anything with a sticker reward.

If she'll is on pink books then she's doing great. Honestly, RWI books are bloody boring and tedious. I don't even want to listen to them. I don't blame her for being bored.

We have a set routine at home. Its not optional.

We come home have a snack and a chat.

Then we read for 10 minutes. They read the RWI book everyday but only bits of it. So them might do the sounds and red works. The next day read the book. The next day tell me the storHeather rest of the time the oldest reads what she wants. She's 6 (year 1) and a free reader. The youngest is 5 and in reception she likes Julia Donaldson. Songbird books or does the workbook. She's reading green at school.

Then we dance (ballet practice) because they have an exam coming up. It's 15 minutes including warm up.

They they can choose an activity colouring, playing with toys, building. Then dinner. If its nice weather we go out and play.

After dinner they can have screen time if everything is done. I like all screens off by 6.30.

Then bath/ shower and gentile routine and more reading. They pich a nook each and I read to them.

My kids like reading eggs and math seed and will often pick that as their screen time. They don't realise they are learning. They also like Mario games on the switch or brain training.

Feel your pain

My approach is to do 'activity' books i.e educational material, before bed. I buy the Scholastic grade- appropriate workbook and do a couple of pages of that each night. I don't mention the homework word when doing it.

I also sometimes let them have an extra ten minutes reading: if it means staying up late (just put them to bed ten mins early 😉) they tend to like it.