AIBU to think fitting homework in is so hard?

[purpletick]

I feel like I’m failing ds, and he’s only in reception so I know things will get worse but I can’t see how to fit it in.

Mornings are so busy and frantic. It’s the best time but we often don’t have time. Plus his sister (2) often comes in and disturbs us.

When he gets home from school he isn’t in the mood (understandable) but before bed feels like setting us up to fail as he’s so tired.

It’s just listening to him read, and learning tricky words. That’s it, and I’m struggling!

(Please don’t tell me just to read to him: I do, quite extensively but I’m not sure it makes a lot of difference in terms of his own reading!)

To be honest it's pointless at this age, reading is enough and more but only if they are willing. I slacked of with one of mine because it was causing more harm than good. In year 5 he suddenly wanted to do it. By high school he was in all top sets and by GCSE he got all 7,8 and 9s. He is on track to get A and A* for A levels. Forcing homework at reception can put them off education. I'm very glad I took a more relaxed approach at such a young age. Schools only care about figures to make them look good not the welfare of the children.

I realise some children will do well regardless but I guess I am just a bit worried about it being cyclical; he is slow at reading so doesn’t like reading so doesn’t read …

I wouldn’t be too bothered about worksheets or anything but reading is just so important.

DD is in reception and luckily we only get given phonics sheets and a new book once a week. I don’t make a point of doing it though. I just ask DD to read her book to me either in the morning or at bedtime and we go through any words she struggles with together and talk about tricky words and phonics. I wouldn’t have time to actively do any sort of homework with having 7mo DS.

Luckily there's no formalised homework in my kids' primary school but we did make sure to read with them almost every day. We built it into story time in the evenings - would pick a book to take turns reading to each other, do a few pages of their reading and then read something they chose to them, etc. We both work full time so there was really no other option besides bedtime. If it's just reading this year can you build it into the bedtime routine? Should only take a few minutes. Are you a single parent?

should only take a few minutes I’m guessing your children were better readers than ds!

And make sure he can do hospital corners and shine his shoes too. Bonus points if you can get him to salute you.

Are you running a home or a boot camp?!

It’s totally impossible - I drop mine off every morning at 07:30 and pick them up at 6 from wraparound care because I have to work full time as a single mother.

When exactly am I supposed to do homework in the 30 minutes of consciousness before the school run or the 2 hours of time at home before bed when also squeezing in cooking, tea, bath, bed and a 2 year old sibling’s needs?

With mine, they read after a short afternoon tea break. Signed the reader book, spelling etc . Before dinner.

ThenZ my child would reread their reader in the morning while we drove to bus stop. Their young sibling was happy in carseat.

I think mornings and be creative with the 2 year old.

Can she sit with you and listen too or have her own book?
Or just be firm - 10mins play with her trains?
Or stick her in a play pen in a different room and ignore?
Or give her 10mins TV?

Wrap around child care should hear the kids read. Then your child can reread to you when dressed in the morning or when in car.

Make special effort to hear them read on Sat and Sun. Reading is essential for all success at school.

I feel for you, its so hard when they are small and already so tired after the school day. We try to do the majority on weekends. Sometimes she's not in the mood and we'll take it in turns to read a page each of her reading book to make it easier.
With tricky words, each week we write them down and stick them around the house on various doors as "passwords" that she has to say before going through. This has been a game changer as its a fun game, she reminds us to "say the password" and even tells us if we've forgotten to change them from last week's words!

I empathise op. Mine are also 5 and 2. Luckily my 5 year old enjoys the reading but I struggle to fit it in as much as i’d like as my 2 year old is incredibly clingy and going through terrible 2s and doesn’t give me space to help my 5 year old.

@purpletick I have the same struggle with my 5 year old DTs, they are in ASC 3 times a week and are shattered when they get home, one day they have swimming straight after school so that doesn't work either. The best solution I have found is getting to school a bit earlier and doing it in the car with them, it's not ideal and trying to keep one quiet whilst the other reads is still an issue but it's better than the struggle of trying to force them to do it after school when they are tired.

Honestly just focus on 5-10 mins daily. No more. Give the toddler breakfast to eat and have him read at the table.

What time are you getting up? It tends to work best with reception age kids if you write off evenings & get them in bed by 7 or even earlier, so that they wake early enough the next morning to fit it in when they are fresh.

I'd just read to him for now OP.

No I meant you should only do this for 10 minutes at a time - not that the kids will learn to read in 10 minutes! Often and short was much better for us.

If this is a current reception child they have been at school almost a year and will rapidly fall behind peers if not regularly practising reading themselves.

It sound like you are reading to him. Can you just get him to sound out the odd word relevant to the level he is at in the book you are reading him. Put him in charge of reading a very short simple story to his sibling? Take advantage of any situational reading like menus, street names, etc.

Do you drive? Mind used to read to me in the car and it worked well. Seemed to take the pressure off.

Similar ages here OP and agree on the ten minute attention span. It’s taken us since Christmas to get up to ‘meeting expectations’ as the academics have been tricky for our oldest.

We have the Reception child do reading during our bedtime routine while the toddler runs around. Some days it could be one page, others the full book - any reading is better than none.

We set up some tricky words practice during our evening reset to be done first thing in the morning over breakfast. Either using flash cards (bought off Amazon) which are read between mouthfuls or a whiteboard. For example we write the tricky words all over the whiteboard and they get wiped off after they’ve been read - we did similar with digraphs and trigraphs etc.

Best endeavours and all that OP.

I wasn't in the mood to do homework when i came home from school, still had to do it before i did anything fun

If it's just reading, then we always did it as part of the bed time routine - DS would read to me for a while, then I would read something different to them. It worked fairly well, although none of my children were great readers - but the tradeoff seemed to work for them.

I know several people that could only do so much because of demanding younger siblings. It's possible to catch up later. I don't think it will do any good for OP to beat herself up over something that can't be changed right now.

A child under the age of 11 really should NOT be required to do homework! It's cruel and unnecessary.
I would just ignore it and let your child be himself and do his own thing when he's at home. Home should be a sanctuary, imo, not an extension of school.

Do you have a partner at home?
Unless they leave for work very early can't one do the reading whilst the other wrangles the 2 year old?

Some used to do in car in mornings at DD’s school. Not sure if that’s an option. If you feel morning would be best can you make any changes like your partner taking 2 year old so you have 10 mins doing reading with him.