Another (Reception) homework one.

[Froggyonaplate]

Hi! Just a quick question about your kid's homework. Basically, do you sit with them and make sure they get it all "right" and teach them the concepts that they haven't got yet? Or do you leave it wrong so the school can see what input is needed?
Ds is in Reception and gets a fair bit of homework, daily reading and spelling plus handwriting sheets, phonics and maths sheets. He's generally fairly good at his work Amd only needs a small amount of supervision but when he does make a mistake eg been asked to fill in missing numbers on a number line he wrote a couple as 81 and 61 rather than 16 and 18.
Thinking of and writing out a list of ai words he did a ll at the end instead of one,

Both occasions I've explained it, rubbed it out Amd we've tried again, but is this right or should I be leaving his "own work" there to see what he has and hasn't grasped?

I would help him to correct it and add a note to the teacher so that they know that he is not 100% secure.

I always go through it with ds and make sure it’s right. The homework he gets is complete crap though and he wouldn’t have a clue what it was about unless I sat there and explained it with him. It’s always about things they’ve never even touched on in class. I feel terrible because I get so bloody frustrated with him. I’m not cut out to be a teacher. I’d love to be able to just sit there and give him a nudge in the right direction sometimes but we have about 3 hours worth a week and it’s exhausting.

Maybe also give him another one, with the same numbers etc, on the back so that he can show that he can now do it.
Y1 teacher here but schools can be very different in what they expect.

I would leave it. That’s a massive amount every night for YR. Is this a private school? I would mostly expect you/him to leave questions that he cannot do. You could explain concepts but if he hasn’t grasped it, the teacher needs to know. It also won’t tie in with her assssment of his progress at school where you are not sitting over him.

I’m glad mine didn’t do this amount. Are you truly happy with this?

Dds teacher says not to correct it because she needs to know if they have actually understood - if the homework is wrong they’ll go over it again in class.

My reception DD only gets reading for homework. I'm a primary teacher and I think that's an insane amount of homework for a reception child. Don't spend ages going over it.

Mine doesn’t get anything like that, just reading! I’d hate to have to make him do worksheets.

I work in reception and we barely glance over the homework. Ideally we wouldn't even send it out but sadly it's policy.
Honestly most weeks I just stick a stamp on it. It's the reading books that are important in reception.

Sorry I wasn't too clear, reading and spelling nightly then 4 sheets (handwriting, maths, phonics) each weekend... Not every night I hate homework but at the moment it's mostly well within his abilities and so reasonably quick (with the exception of the type of mistakes earlier) I think part of the reason I'm asking is, I love listening to him read but find the rest a bit much, if I'm expected to sit down and start explaining when and where double and single l is used etc then the homework with feel like a real burden.
Not a private school no, ordinary C of E school.

That's what I assumed it was anyway. Still a huge amount of homework! Focus on the reading and phonics. At this age the spelling will come through phonics anyway.

When my ds had homework that needed my input I would then write at the end what help was needed. It did depend how much time I had as to whether I helped or not. In general schools often prefer a single line through mistakes with the correct answer written next to it. They can then see what the mistake is.

Dd2 is in year 2 & this is the first year of homework. I asked teacher and she suggested using a different coloured pencil for corrections.

At my kids school they say homework is all about getting the parent engaged with the child's work so they expect the parent to go over it with them, talk through mistakes and fix. My child is nearly 5 and would never be able to do the work your child is getting! No where near that level and I thought her work was hard enough lol

My DD is in yr 1 now but in reception she got a similar amount to your DS OP. Reading every night and work sheets on handwriting and maths every weekend. Her school also start cursive writing from reception. I used to sit with her every weekend and we’d do it together. I remember in particular she found the cursive ‘f’ very difficult so I guided her hand and put a note to the teacher to let her know.

Now DD is in yr 1 she is pretty independent with her homework but I do still check it and make sure she has understood.

Can she do cursive now commuter? This is a nightmare for me as ds is not great at handwriting and I worry that cursive will finish him off!! Maybe they just adapt though?
Govinda what sort of things do you get? I dread getting anything creative

Every week my nearly 5 year old gets:

2 letters to work on where they practice letter formation and draw 3 pics for each sound

3 spelling words to write out 3 times each

Maths is usually a tally chart or a shape hunt or something like that

Literacy task like find sounds in a book and write a few words down

Creative task like draw a picture or make a model

Also reading every night.

I think its a lot! Far too much but it isnt as complex as the tasks your child gets. My daughter doesnt do any numbers above 20 and no phoneme sounds yet beyond the general alphabet.

I have to sit with my daughter for every task. She's not capable of doing any of it on her own so we fix mistakes as we go through it.

The teacher cannot rely on homework to assess children's learning, as despite clear instructions the teacher can never be sure that every child did the homework by themselves. IMO homework should NOT be for the teacher to assess the child.

Nor should homework be about the parents teaching the child something they haven't covered at school yet.

If homework is to have any good side to it at all (which is questionable at this age anyway) then IMO it is that (given the parents have time, and the knowledge required) it is an opportunity for 1-1 work where the child gets immediate feedback. Immediate verbal feedback (as in: "look at that answer again please" or "in this word we spell the (sound) in this way") is a great way to learn. Much more helpful /effective than having a teacher mark your work and getting it back to go over again the next day. But this kind of effective, immediate feedback is (for pragmatic reasons) the exception in the school day. It can however be achieved at home!

By all means, let the teacher know (by using different colour pencil for corrections, or crossing out wrong answer rather than rubbing it out, or by adding a note) if you're worried that the teacher will misconstrue your child's abilities. Also let the teacher know if you are finding the work way too hard for your child (child cannot do it without significant help). But don't let that put you off from 'correcting' your child's errors!

We do a bit of everything every night.
Spellings always as they are tested every Monday morning.

Sorry op, I did think you meant every night!

I did not suggest the teacher should assess homework. However if a teacher sees excellent homework but the child’s work in class is at a lower level, then the homework is a bit neaningless because the child has clearly not actually done it. This all assumes the teacher looks at the homework! I do agree it should never be formally assessed.

Reception sent home lots of homework for DD1. I helped him reading and phonics stuff and left the rest. The teacher spoke to me and I just told her that I wasn't stopping her doing the homework, but I wasn't going to push it either. She was 4 ffs.

Now she's just into KS2 I make sure she's done her homework. I help her with reading, but everything else she does herself.

I let DD do her homework her own way in the hope that her teachers will pick up on how much she is struggling. It's not happened yet :(

That's a ridiculous amount of homework for reception. My ds gets a book for me to read to him and some letters for him to copy/trace over. I usually write a little note to the teacher saying how much I have helped him.

My DS is in Year 2 and has only started to get homework this year (maths and literacy once a week in addition to reading and spellings). We do it with him - I don’t see the point in letting him do it on his own and randomly guessing (Maths) or reinforcing his mistakes in punctuation/handwriting (literacy) - he’s below expectations so would be different if he were easily able to access the homework. The way I see it, he has plenty of time in school to muddle through it, but at home we can give him the one to one support and help him grasp it. Going over it afterwards and correcting it or making him see mistakes and correct it wouldn’t be much less effective for his learning at this stage and would be so demoralising and would take forever.

His teachers have said the homework is pretty much optional (and only given because parents requested it ) and it is often not taken in for weeks and not marked so I try to do it in the most pain free and most helpful way for us.