How much help do you give with homework projects?

[MandMand]

My son is 7 and in year 3, but has ASD and really struggles with writing, and working independently. The only way I can get him to produce any legible written homework is to sit next to him, dictating and spelling every word for him, while constantly rubbing out the mistakes and illegible scrawls until we finally come up with something that's not too awful to hand in.

He now has a homework project to complete between now and July which is supposed to be a substantial piece of independent research and writing, and my heart just sinks.

Does anyone have a 7 year old boy (with or without any additional needs) who could actually produce a reasonable project without a huge amount of parental input? Should I just leave him to do it, hand in the results (or lack of result), or do I just have to accept I need to spend an hour a day for the next 3 months coaxing and cajoling him?

My DD is in Year 3, and very able. And she can't do the large research type projects unaided (nor can Year 5 DS).

I try to encourage the DC to come up with a plan of what they want to achieve (often this is the hardest part as they have no idea) and then break it down into "doable" chunks. WE would probably aim for 20-30 minute on a Saturday or Sunday though. If you do that every week it builds up but it not too onerous.

But yes, they need a lot of help still - researching, summarising and writing are three hard skills - though they are encouraged to do as much as possibly themselves.

though I find it very galling that lots of parents seem to entirely do the project for their DC

DS is 7 and in Y2.

At his old school he used to have two projects per term, these were know as 'parents as partners' projects. This (I presume) gave us parents the green light to help, in some of the projects I don't know how else completion would have been possible without our input. It's just knowing how much input really isn't.

I'm dreading Y3 project work tbh because whilst ds is capable he loathes homework and it's always a struggle getting him to do it. Project work is a pita at times.

I'm sorry, I haven't been much help but I totally sympathise with you.

Can your DS not do the project on a computer?

That way you could suggest things to research (even typing it into Google for him) and he could just pull out the bits of information he needs. Pad it out with lots of pictures if the subject allows it.

Have his teachers indicated how much parental imput is allowed? I wouldn't expect many 7 year olds could do this without any help. Certainly my DS wouldn't have been able to at that age.

Before the Labour Government came into power in 1997 the practice of setting home work in state primary schools was practically non-existent, apart from taking reading books home. Sometimes children might be encouraged to find out something for the next lesson, nothing formal was set. Labour encouraged the setting of homework in order for parents to become engaged with their children's learning, but it seems to have got out of hand with these ridiculous long-term projects for quite young children.

I don't think you can blame Labour for that one. I had homework at junior school in 1960s and 1970s, and it wasn't seen as unusual then.

The problems I find are

• the project is so openended that your DC has no idea what to do or how to present it, unless they have a particular interest in one part of the topic (which has only happened once so far)

• your child puts search term into google and is faced with a myriad of sites (I normally suggest they put "for children" or "for kids" which will often yield more childfriendly sites).

• they are still left with a lot to read and often don't really know what they are looking for (if they struggle I tend to skim read myself and point out the best sites)

• they then have to write in their own words - very hard to get over that they should not copy

• they have to pick out main points - which is hard if they aren't really sure what they want to write about.

• they are given several weeks for the project but no guidance as to expectation as to what they should produce (which I know is meant so they can do as much or little as they want, but actually I don't want them to do the minimum so some idea of "a reasonable amount" would be good)

• when your child hands in their project they are instantly demoralised because over half the class has brought in the most amazing projects that evidently had huge amounts of parental involvement (some parents openly say their DC has had virtually nothing to do with them). And theirs looks very poor in comparison leaving them to think that what they have done was "wrong".

DS1 started getting long projects when he was in year 3 (he has Aspergers). Fortunately for him, they were in history which is one of his special interests. He was very good at searching for lots of information so before he started we would decide between us 5 or 6 areas to find information on. I always let him write them up by computer. I found it was best if he found a picture to put in, and then wrote a couple of sentences to describe it, then another picture to describe. It seemed to help him focus what he wanted to write, and by having the pictures ordered before he started he then wrote in a much more ordered fashion. In year 3 I gave him some help - making sure he was writing stuff in his own words not just copy and pasting from the net for example. Year 4 I left him to it and just checked content spelling etc at the end. In year 5 he did a massive project using the above formula. He has also grown in confidence that he decided to branch away from it and included power point presentation slides too. In year 6 I said it was time to change his focus to not just regurgitating facts but explaining why things happened, or how they made him feel. He was worried that his project was a lot shorter than before, but was very pleased when his teacher said it was even better than before.

DS2 (ASD) is in year 2 he has just been given a week long project to do, but it is clearly defined in the way all their work is - I must be able to.... (categorise things in the garden - gives examples of what they have done in school), I should be able to... (see how things change between beginning and end of week - gives examples of what they have done in school), I could... (give my opinions on my garden, good, bad, how it could be changed). He is quite looking forward to it, although panicking slightly as he has to do it on 'HIS' garden and he is going away to stay with relatives and he can't do their garden. So we sat down last night and I drew up a list of tables that he can run around the garden tonight before he leaves counting all the different flowers and vegetable plants so he can write it all up when he is away. I'm more concerned that his relatives will try and interfere with his homework! I see no point in parents doing the project for a child, but if they struggle with planning then it is a good time to give some one to one intervention to help teach them and lay base skills for the future.

I remind DC to do their project. I will provide things they need (craft stuff, a semi-supervised computer, a trip to the library/travel agent etc.). I will provide moral support should they be finding it difficult/being over-dramatic. I will carry bloody 3D full-scale model of MIR space station etc. to school. But that is it.

Homework that requires parents to do it, does not deserve to be done. In reception DD2 had homework to research three interesting facts about China that no one else would have. Given that most the class couldn't read, this was stupid. So she cut out chinese-y pictures from travel brochure and stuck them in her book. DS's 3D model of his home was not the most polished structure in the class (and frankly resembled a robot rather than a house). But it was his own work and he got a sticker for effort. DD1's literacy homework is frequently badly spelled and ill-structured. But it is her own work. I do not need to prove how clever I am to school.