When your child can't do their homework - what are the options?

My daughter is severely dyslexic too. When faced with this kind of homework, I help her read through sources for information. She then dictates back to me what she wants to say and I type it. We discuss Similarly once she has handed the homework in she will explain that she has had help. But she always has scribes for tests, has extra time and support in class so teachers are aware of what she can and can't do.

Another thing to find out is how they give the note sin class. I discovered that dd was expected to copy everything down - she is slower and was missing huge chucks. Now the teachers are meant to give her notes on her memory stick to help with homework or revision.

My DD is dyslexic. I realise that this is a bit of 'shutting the door once the horse has bolted' but what she does is schedule in the work on her calendar. 30 mins on the project on day abc so that she does it in little bits.

If there is a lot of writing expected, then we tend to get her to use bullet points and make sure her sentences are packed with info. Less is more and all that.

Personally - in your position I'd encourage short articles with lots of pictures!

For DD she needs a lot of breaks, work for 20 minutes, 5 or 10 minute break, then back to work. She could never sit and produce her best work if she was facing hours on a single task.

I'd email the teacher to explain the issues so that the teacher is aware of the challenges and is primed to expect the level of work being handed in.

Some newspaper articles are very short. Could he write two sentences on say five of the topics and then do a picture/photo/cartoon for the other two. It is probably best if its his work rather than your work because then the teacher will realise there is a problem. I would say quite a lot of non dyslexic year 8s would have a problem with this amount of work

Unfortunately, they do get some large pieces of work thrown at them at short notice and sometimes 2/3 pieces in one week.

The school need to be made aware he's struggling with it, why and decisions made on how to help and move forward. If he can't do seven articles, I'd be tempted to put a note in saying he's spent 10 hours, is struggling and has therefore done 3 articles. The main thing is to hand something in that he's done.

My dc often get info to present in the form of newspaper articles too. I think one reason why they may have asked for this format is that the info can be presented in a quote subjective way - eg pick a particular date for the publication (eg. the day the suffragette was run over by the horse - Emily Pankhurst, was it)? Then do a made up interview with an eyewitness - "one source reported...." etc with quotes. Another article could be an interview with a suffragette who sets out the main aims of the movement, another with someone who does not think women should get the vote. Then it can all be more subjective, and less a list of detailed facts (like an essay). Use images too - draw the flag, etc.

BTW, if using Wikipedia, change the language to "Simple English" if it's available.

OP, I think your approach is right.

If his dyslexia is severe, he will almost certainly qualify for extra time in his GCSEs, as well as use of a laptop and perhaps even a reader.

Your helping him is evidence that having a reader is his "normal way of working".

He should qualify for extra time in all his assessments, so it is within his rights to ask for an extension. This probably wouldn't help him as it would interfere with other deadlines, so he should really have a reduced task, or at least one that assesses what needs to be assessed rather than volume of work, ability to speed read etc.

The teacher should be differentiating homework.

The problem is not that his hw is too hard / long.

It's that he's not working at a Y8 level in terms of processing and possible other things.

If you want him to pass his GCSEs you need to really think about how you want to play this.

How you or school will teach him these skills.

For his GCSEs he can't say he can't do it.

I would be asking why it hasn't been differentiated or fully explained to him.
My ds2 had a similar issue with one teacher. He was given 3 detentions for not completing homework he had no record of and didn't understand. I told him to do the detentions as he should have asked for help and then wrote letters to his senco re the teachers failure to follow the plan that was in place. I felt that Ds2 was being set up to fail and told them in writing.
Ds2 has had no problems since.

On an aside while this was going on his head of year then wrote wanting to discuss his detentions as 3 was "concerning". I didnt reply as i felt that was really not a conversation that would begin or end well.
Write to the school.

I'm a history teacher and there's no way I'd set a homework of that much depth on a topic we hadn't studied! I DO sometimes set projects but they'll always be on the topic we are studying and always over a whole half term, with detailed guidance about how to break down each task and when to have completed them by.

IF your son has recorded the homework correctly and IF he's not been given any guiding documents, then I'd be emailing the head, plus the senco or head of year/house.... That's an unacceptable homework, in my opinion!

not to mention it seems a bizarre jump to go from Cromwell to the Suffragettes!

I would email the teacher tomorrow- does she know that's he's dyslexic?

Do they make any differentiation for your DS at all, generally? If not and this is the tip of an iceberg I would be asking for a meeting with the SENCO to get this sorted. Does he has have EHCP/any support etc ?

If this is a one off (leaving aside the "checking each day what HW you have for a min) I would absolutely let him do his own work, help him with research, small amount of written work, incorrect spellings etc etc. I would (if you have time) go through with him, talk him through the corrections he needs to make and get him to rewrite it etc. I would then put a note in the planner either asking for a chat on phone or face to face with teacher or explaining DS has done his best with the task and he has brought the "before and after" so they can see how much time he needs to spend on a task to get it to the correct level, please could they reduce the tasks accordingly? A discussion would definitely be helpful.

I'm not a teacher but have DC with SN at secondary and this is what I did if problems arose. The teachers need to differentiate but sometimes "whole class" tasks are handed out willy nilly and they forget how much more time everything takes. I also made a point in Yr 7 at looking at their planners each night and seeing what HW they had and explaining (I could say this in my sleep ) if they do a task when it's set they won't risk leaving it til they get other tasks and it's unmanageable. "Only English" one night is fine until three nights later they have English, maths history, IT etc etc I seem to have beaten it into them a few years later

One DC has dropped a couple of subjects on the basis they'd be better off spending more time on the more "important" subjects (and their SN meant they really struggled with the dropped subjects) but I know a lot of schools don't like this. I'm also not a great fan of large amounts of HW and agree it should be for reinforcement but a lot of it seems to be for "private research" these days.

As long as my DC did their best in say an hour, they would take it in as completed as it is and explain, with note from parent if required.

The SENCO may be the best person if this is an issue with more than one teacher. Good luck

You can always email and say this genuinely was his best effort, but that his processing issues meant that the homework she set wasn't actually accessible to him.

Is History set? Can he move down a set where the homework is easier?

The teacher will know what his normal work is like so he can't hand in something so perfect that it screams it was written by you.

Tbh I think he should have broken it down to a page a day (I have a y8 and she certainly wouldn't have done all pages on the same day) but it's easy for us to say that in hindsight.

I have a primary school child who's currently doing a project on something he has to research himself and we've found videos on the Internet to sink in more than written work.

My kids learned never to use Wikipedia for research as the information can be edited by anyone. BBC Bitesize is usually good for the main points on a topic.

He probably needs to hand it in with repetitive phrasing, spelling all over the place etc. Otherwise his teacher has no way of knowing that he doesn't have the learning resources for such a homework.

In future though he needs to start it on the day it's set.
It's 7 pages. So research, and do one page/ topic every night is reasonable. And easier to hold information if just on one thing and completed straight away.

Homework should be about reinforcing info, not about learning a whole new subject. That's the job of the teachers.