To think this is too much to ask of 7/8 (yr3) year olds?

[emkana]

about a topic, read relevant books/websites, digest the information, then write about the topic (seven subheadings to cover) using all your own words, plus illustrate appropriately?

basically, He is writing the story about the pikachu toy his brother got for his birthday. I am promting him with "And what do you wish would happen?"

So far, pikachu came alive at night, and went downstairs and blasted the door open to the kitchen. Pikachu was naughty and burrowed tunnels through the wall. Mum woke up and came downstairs, so everyone hid in the tunnel. Mum was furious but couldn't find anyone to tell off so went back upstairs. in the morning, the boys tidied up and Mum said "Good work, Boys!"

Poor Pikachu gets used for every single imaginative homework he's ever set. It's the only thing he'll apply ANY imagination to at all. I say things like "What do you think Pikachu might do next?" and he shrieks "I don't KNOW!"

I would just send the story in as it is now. If the teacher has any understanding of your Ds then she should know how hard he must have worked to get that far.

I'm going to damn well tell her he spent two hours on it (he did) and she had better citicise very little!!!!

It baffles me what ivory tower you must live in to think all year threes could do this.

Also, if it's so vital to be able to do these things, how come the good primary school down the road never does research projects? Just makes it seem completely random.

My almost seven year old could not do an independent research project. He can't type or use a PC alone, he can only just read, he doesn't know how to research a project.
But then he wouldn't be expected to. Plenty enough time for this stuff later on. Its entirely unecessary and wouldn't aid his educational achivement whatsoever.

My DS is 8 and in year four and he could not do that homework. He is dyslexic - he couldn't even google one site unassisted.
Of course it's not vital that they do research projects at 7 or 8.

There are some year 3 children out there that cannot look up some info then read a text and then write a few sentences in their own words to describe what they have just read.

DSs could do it. But it would be twisting their arm every step of the way.
They are already at least average academically, so not an issue of being "behind".
I twist their arms every day in loads of ways... I make them go to school. I insist on Please and Thank you. I make them brush their teeth and go to bed at a reasonable time. I don't let them play computer games constantly, I don't let them live on biscuits and chips. At some point my energy runs out on the arm twisting... & I have to wonder whether there's any "benefit" in DC doing homework when the level of my "support" is such that my 7-8yo DS's contribution to his homework is only acting as scribe.

I think that those of us on the same wave length as Emanka realise that there is no educational benefit in parents dictating work to young children. Others seem to think that this is perfectly acceptable.

For most of us this is just a pointless pita, but Colditz has shown how it can actually be harmful. Every time we help our NT children we are perpetuating the idea that this is a reasonable task.

Let's be honest. Not many of us are going to allow a 7/8 year old to google unsupervised. It is far too risky, so we sit beside them, direct them to appropriate sites, decode jargon. When they write something clumsy, we say excellent but maybe it would be better we tweak it a little. Ridiculous.

My 6 yr old DS has just finished his Easter project homework .

On a subject really guaranteed not to motivate a 6 yr old boy with ASD, he's typed 4 good sentences (with me hovering over his shoulder) and I'm delighted with that, because it's good practice doing actual sentence writing (which he won't do reliably at school) and the next time we do it he'll find it a bit easier, and so on, until the process of writing no longer remains a significant barrier.

Dd was set a project at this age. The list of requirements expected to be covered was long and exhaustive and was to be done over 6 weeks iirc. It way above her capabilities and she was always one of the higher achievers in class.

She struggled very badly with it buried under a heap of books 'researching' night after night getting no-where other than more and more upset and de-motivated. It def seemed a piece of work for someone much older.

I was worried and went and saw the teacher who couldn't have been less interested tbh. We had the feigned surprise and how she couldn't understand it and how 'everyone else is enjoying it..' She is my oldest dd so I had no experience of the expectation for this age group wrt school work. Dd was pretty intimidated by the teacher who is quite ready to mete out punishments for lesser crimes ie staying in at playtimes for getting a spelling wrong etc so a non completion of a project would not have gone down well. Going by the teacher's comments I pushed her on despite the fact she was struggling.

It wasn't until I spoke to another parent that the lightbulb moment occurred. The parents were 'helping' (ie doing it). So that's exactly what I did too.

The end result was an array of beautiful projects to display in the foyer and all was well . It was blatantly obvious who had done the work and I can't believe it helped a single child academically.

I have no regret and would do it again. If they cannot be reasonable and set work that is achievable for the age-group, if my concerns were swept aside when I tried to mention them, if dd, sick with worry, was likely to be punished for not completing the damn thing, then I was left with no alternative.

And from then on I have viewed too much homework for this age group with extreme skeptisim.

I think that those of us on the same wave length as Emanka realise that there is no educational benefit in parents dictating work to young children. Others seem to think that this is perfectly acceptable.

And others think their child could/should be capable of doing the work themselves. I don't think it's acceptable to do all of my son's homework (bar the actual writing) for him. Pointing him to the right books/websites is hardly that.

My older dd had to do the same project in year 3. She was a very comfortable level 3 at the end of year 2, now in year 5 she is a level five in literacy. So achieving well. She was not able to do this without me basically dictating every word to her.

And I'm still waiting for somebody to explain why other countries manage to arrive at the same destination educationally without having expectations of this sort at such a young age.

and, actually, higher destinations educationally.

Well yes, but I didnt dare mention that again.

YABU I don't think its an excessive amount of work tbh.

So the outcome of the thread is

a. some kids that age can do it.

b. some kids that age cannot do it.

c. some kids need help.

d. some kids do not need help.

e. some parents will help.

f. some parents won't help.

So I suppose you have to go with what one suits you.

you forgot g. (the most important one) whether or not they can do it, what the hell are they doing it for? How will it help them at all? They are SEVEN, not 17.

Exactly Winter (fab fab name you have there btw)

It does seem a lot to me but then my niece who goes to a private school gets given (to me) large volumes of homework but the school she goes to wipes the floor with the other schools in the area.

winter...............A lot of stuff you learn in school are never needed again algebra and logarithms for example. I could prob think of more.

Would you take your child out of these lessons as well?

Late to this thread. I can understand that this homework might be hard for some children, but can't see how you can question the point of it. It practises all sorts of skills. Surely the whole idea of this type of homework is that it differentiates by outcome - i.e. some children will manage to research and write lots, others less, and some not very much. I would assume the teacher knows what the children are capable of, and would be expecting different levels from them accordingly.

goldberry.....spot on and the teacher can learn who is just copying from text and who is really thinking about what they are writing etc etc

BendyBob wrote a great post about why this is not so great at this age (although my DD is younger):

"Dd was set a project at this age. The list of requirements expected to be covered was long and exhaustive and was to be done over 6 weeks iirc. It way above her capabilities and she was always one of the higher achievers in class.

She struggled very badly with it buried under a heap of books 'researching' night after night getting no-where other than more and more upset and de-motivated. It def seemed a piece of work for someone much older."

Surely classwork would be better to differentiate between who can do what, and homework would be better set that all of the children are going to be able to turn something in. That way children who are unsupported at home / have parents who are not literate / have parents who won't or can't do it for other reasons / have special needs / are NT but not up to that level yet won't be shown out as being incapable of doing it to the expected standard which might well impact their confidence and enthusiasm for school generally.

Schools should IMO not be setting work that the majority of children will only be able to do with heavy parental input. What's the point? All it shows is who has parents who will sit down and help them, and simply totally shows up everyone else.

I am a person who follows instructions. If the school tells me that DD must independently research something and write about it then I think that is what they expect her to do. I would assume that they did not want me involved further than switching on the computer / going to the library with her / providing a pen and paper. I would assume that they had good reasons for stipulating this criteria and would follow the rules. And if she was unable to do it, then that is what they are looking to find out.

OTOH if they said help your child do XY and Z then I would follow the rules there too. But they don't seem to be saying that.

I don't see what the point of this sort of thing is at age 5/6/7 apart from to demoralise all but the top few and those with parents who will overlook the rules and do it basically for them?

speak for yourself chips, I use algebra daily.