To not sit over DD and supervise every second of her homework

[ontheedgeofwhatever]

Just wondered.

DD is 6 in year 1 and has reading 3 times a week which i listen to. Tonight she also has a comprehension sheet to go with the book. I've left her to it and said she can ask for help if she wants it. This has been normal with us since about half way through the year. She sometimes asks for help, sometimes not

She's said most of her friends mums sit with them and she's a bit upset as they're getting better marks on their homework. A few mums have talked to me about how much effort they have to put into their DC's comprehension - eg spelling out every word, helping them look for answers etc.

AIBU to think its DD's comprehension and answers the teachers interested in and not mine or should I give her more help?

No, what you're doing sounds fine to me.

I think I put too much into helping my eldest and actually, he became very lazy.

I left my other two to get on with it and they hardly ever need help or reminding...I think my relaxed attitude has given them independence.

The teacher's not stupid anyway and will see the huge difference between the quality of homework and the work done in class.

YNBU mine aren't that old yet. But i imagine your right as the teacher is interested in what your DD know and not what you do. They also need to Lear to do their own home work. My mum would help me with mine if i needed it but i did most of it myself.

YANBU.

Do you stay in the same room though, doing something else so that you're easily accessible if she does want help? That may be a good compromise.

Yes in same room mumsnetting. She's finished now - some very interesting spellings but all the answers seems to be correct and even in sentences of sorts

Don't you go through it afterwards and correct it with her and explain why it was wrong?

I think the important thing is to check it over with her when she's finished.

That way if she's got anything wrong, you can explain why and go through it with her.

Until she starts Juniors and then if you're anything like me, most of the homework will baffle you

YANBU. I agree with Worra.

Lucky you - having a child who'll do it happily. One of mine is like this, the other isn't. At all.

I ask him if he'd like me to check it - sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't. If he's made a mistake I suggest he has another look at that question. If he asks me for spellings I direct him to the dictionary.

Sounds like you are doing it exactly as it should be done.

I do similar with my dd aged 6, though she does need more encouragement to do it in the furst place. Oh and encouragement to stick to it too!!

My DD is same age /year as yours. i do what you do, although I check it over after as sometimes she is too eager to go and play/eat/do anything else and I think makes silly mistakes even though she knows what the right answer is.

I think its important they do as much alone as possible as otherwise you can't gauge if they are really learning anything.

At this age to be honest I think I maybe would do more.

You can look at homework one of two ways,;

As a chance for her to show her teacher what she knows

As an opportunity for you to give her some one on one support which she probably won't get much of at school, to show her ways of working, finding out things.

Its good that she can ask you for help. But if you helped her without been asked you can show her the difference between doing an OK bit of work, and going the extra distance for an outstanding bit of work. I'm not talking about doing it for her at all.

Then once she's got the hang of it leave her to it more.

I used to think that way Viva but it just didn't work with my eldest.

After a couple of years he expected me to virtually do it all for him...and when it came to doing it all by himself, he did as little as humanly possible.

It worked with DD, she's now in Yr 6 and I have very little to do with her homework. But if I hadn't put the time in for the first couple of years I think she'd have cruised along doing the bare minimum.

I do get that there's an arguement about whether or not primary school children should get homework. I wish they didn't. But if they have got to do it I think its a good habit to get into of doing the best you can.

"an opportunity for you to give her some one on one support which she probably won't get much of at school, to show her ways of working, finding out things."

I agree that this is the way homework should be viewed.

Been a secondary age similar thread. IMHO they need to get on top of doing stuff themselves and this is a good point to learn the first " baby steps"

I do go over her mistakes with her but we don't correct them unless she wants to. Viva does have a point and its kind of what I'm wondering about.

help her. who else has she got?

I think Viva has it right, especially as your DD seem to be saying that she wants to get good marks as her friends, whose mothers or parents help them.

But the kids with the better marks are getting them because their Mum did the work. I would make her do the homework herself first and then look at it and correct the most glaring errors.

Primary school homework should be outlawed.

Yes... but I'd say, ask her if she wants you to go through it with her. It sounds like she'd appreciate it but some kids hate mum correcting their work.

I would like to do what you do. And I suspect the teacher is well aware of which children get significant help and which don't.

But DS really struggles to do homework on his own - he just doesn't seem to know how to get started. His homework this week was to write a recount of Sports Day. He claimed he had never written a recount (he's in Y3, so I don't believe this). So my "help" was more along the lines of devising a strategy to help him write anything (can you tell me verbally what happened/can you think of some good connectives and adjectives to make your writing more interesting). The finished version is otherwise all his own work. I reminded him to check for punctuation but I have not pointed out the places where he has still missed full stops after checking. In my head at least this is somewhere half way between leaving him to do it (which wouldn't happen) and being overly helicopterish.

DS is nearly 6 and in Y1. Thankfully we don't seem to get homework beyond listening to reading and learning spelling.

We have had some holiday projects, most recent was to do something about Greek mythology. We had been reading some stories and DS decided he wanted to write postcards from Heracles. I gave him some blank cards and helped him with a few spellings but otherwise left him to it. He chose what to write and I wasn't sitting with him while he did it.