Does this sound like difficult homework for Yr 2?

[dollybird]

DD is in year 2 although youngest in her year (31/8 birthday). She is bright and loves reading and writing (esp reading), is also very good at maths although this came as a surprise to us. She is reading chapter books now and gets a task to do with the reading every week as well as core words where she has to use certain words in some writing. Usually the reading task is to write about the character or answer some questions about what happened in the story.

Last week her book was Mark Spark/Mark Spark in the Dark by Jacqueline Wilson and the task was to compare the two stories and write about the way that Jacqueline Wilson writes and the vocabulary she uses. DD just didn't know what to write and was quite upset about it. I know that they need to challenge bright children so they don't get bored, but this just seems a bit too much for a six year old to me?

Is this a state primary?
Dd is 7 and is on free Reading but the weekly tasks are spelling test on 10 words and a writing/ numeracy task like
what are your favourite animals? Describe them and use connectives...

My ds is year one but only a day younger than your dd, his homework is more like Piffle suggests. There's no way he could write comparisons like that or analyse which vocabulary was used and he's not daft

Yeah, state primary. She is currently on level 2a for reading and 2b for writing which is higher than DS who is 15 months older. He never even got reading tasks in year 2! She is also tested for the spelling of the core words which are far from 'core' words as far as I'm concerned. Last weeks were wharf, whether, photograph, paragraph, whisper

I don't think they have Em, I think they've been doing Katie Morag at school (think that's what it's called!). Maybe they've done something similar with that? I think the problem is that I didn't have the chance to listen to her read this week as was helping DS with his homework and she just got on and read the book so it was difficult for me to help her with it.

TBH I'm obv pleased that she's doing so well but scared of how much harder it could get!! esp as she's so young and I don't want her to get disheartened or frustrated with it.

I sort of did that last week! I asked her the questions & she told me the answers and I write them down for her to copy later - she was worried she'd forget what happened as she read just before bed!

she handed in the homework today - she had written one paragraph which just said the difference between the two stories & then I commented in her reading diary that she had found it hard and didn't know what to write!

I know the book you mean.

As they move toward a "level 3" they are encouraged to look at how an author uses language to build mood/atmosphere.

The kind of answer they are after, I think is, something like "Mark Spark in the Dark" is scary. The author uses words like "creepy", "dark", "sinister" to make it scary. She also has lots of questions to make you wonder what happens next. (have made that up by the way, don't remember the book that well).

Realistically, this is quite hard for them to do still.

I would probably have gone through with my child and found passages where the use of language (speech, punctuation, adjectives) were different between the two.

Although this is hard, it is actually a really good way to make your daughter think about what she is reading. It would probably be good to jot in her diary that you did it together and what your approach was. I wouldn't write something for her to copy, with support she should be able to do it herself.

That sounds very hard. Definitely not like our y2 English homework. We had to write a book report a couple of weeks ago, but no contracting of styles.

my DD is in the same year, she is advanced in literacy
( yesterday she won a story competition for the whole borough!) but I would say that to ask child to analyse a story is quite a challening homework.
We never got that - we usually have to describe something, do 10 words /spellings a week, use connectives etc

dd's in y2 and level 3 for literacy and has never had homework like that! It sounds way too hard for a 6 year old and pretty pointless if a parent then ends up doing it for them

Just don't do it and tell the teacher it was too hard. Teachers need to know whether a task set is realistic or not. Don't be afraid to tell the truth and cetainly DON'T do it for her.

This does sound hard.
I have an English degree and I didn't do this sort of thing till secondary school. We did discuss books a bit at primary school but not a full essay comparison!

THis does sound hard! My dd is in P2, and is really good at reading, but has never been asked to do anything like this- I doubt she would be able to, tbh

My daughter is 7 and in Year 3. She's just been assessed at level 3a for reading and I think she'd find that manageable, but quite challenging. I don't think she'd have known where to start a year ago!

I would just comment that she was unable to do it and let the teacher know. I don't see the point of doing it for her if she was upset .... she'll just get another lot of h/w equally as difficult and not be able to do that either .... you don't want her confidence or esteem knocked. Sounds like her teacher is probably pushing for her to sit level 3 in her English SATS and trying to see if she's up to scratch.

One of my sons is 6(yr2) and after speaking to parents of other schools who tell me their children (same age) get reading, spellings, maths, timestables and a learning log every week. I am very concerned that mine is only getting a reading book that is changed once a week. But then my 10 year old (yr6) has reading, spellings, maths and learning log (all once a week). Am I being a painful parent wanting more? It's just that when all these children get together in high school there's going to be a big difference in abilities. No I dont want to waste quality with my kids arguing with them to do homework but a little every day can't be bad can it :(

It sounds crazily hard for a 6yo. DS1 is at a similar reading level but would really struggle with that homework. I would help her do it if I were you, but tell the teacher thats what you did and its too hard. I would be really worried about her being discouraged with homework like that.

baah - I wouldn't worry all schools do different things with homework. They will have to get them to a certain level before they get to secondary school maybe they just do different things in the classroom. FWIW I would rather my 6yo (year 2) got no homework at all other than reading/spelling.

I wouldn't help. It is fine helping with the odd thing and providing a bit of clarification but in this case, it would involve you reading two books and practically doing the homework for your DD. It is not your homework and TBH it sounds more like secondary school work than something suitable for a 6 year old, and the teacher will not learn this if you do the work!

Baah, I wouldn't worry abut your son's lack of homework. Did you have homework in primary school? I didn't!

What an odd thing to set a 6-year old for homework. It's far too open ended(unless they've taught her some dull formula for answering these sorts of questions at this age level, which judging by her reaction, they haven't...). And don't do the homework for her - you'll be comparing the books in far too sophisticated a way, and it will obviously NOT be a 6-year old's work. After all, they ask these sorts of questions in the A-level syllabus, so anyone above the age of 6 is going to be looking for comparisons that are far too subtle.

In my opinion, at the age of 6, even if you have a reading age of 15, you are not automatically going to be able to answer a question like that in anything even vaguely approaching a satisfactory way until you've had an awful lot more general writing practice (and tuition on what on earth is expected of you from a question like that). If the teacher really wants to challenge her and she's bright and enthusiastic, then why can't she write her own story, instead? My ds1 writes lovely stories in the style of favourite authors, which perfectly show his comprehension of the use of language and storytelling techniques of the person in question! Not that he's aware that's what he's doing. He'd much rather do that than be freaked out by a question like the one your dd was given.

Talk it through with her, with lots of leading questions to show her the sort of thing the teacher is looking for, don't necessarily make her write anything, but send a note back to the teacher saying what you've done.

But don't worry - the teacher will probably adjust her expectations (as long as you don't cheat) and your DD's age will rapidly become less important - she's clearly bright, so she'll get the hand of this sort of formal writing fairly soon.

dollybird, my yr2 DD could do that homework and quite enjoy it. However, the only literacy task they get each week are spellings - albeit tailored to the childs ability.

Well, I for one started yawning before I even reached the end of the question... If I'd started writing essays with that sort of heading at age 6, I would have become utterly fed up with them by the time I left school.