DD had 4th grade last year. Her teachers gave all the Social Studies, Math, Vocab and Spelling homework on Monday. I loved this system and miss it in 5th grade. The Social Studies (5-10 questions) and Math (5 problems a day) were due on Friday. The Vocab and Spelling homework was due in two weeks. They never brought home Science. She was able to do all this work on Monday in about 2 hours but other students took hours to do just one day's assignments. I thought this was a fair load but I was in the minority. She was also expected to reach her AR goal every quarter. I am sorry your son is having so many issues with homework. I would try to enforce the IEP and look at ways to break up the homework, if possible.
Post by laurenpetro on Aug 17, 2015 15:09:26 GMT -5
there is no way i would let G spend 2 hours on a worksheet when she was in 4th grade. absolutely not. even if she didn't have a 504 i'd be all over her to help her out at that point.
i know this is a stupid question but have you emailed the teacher and said anything aside from requesting a conference?
I think 4th graders often have 30 to 60 mins of homework. But I'll be honest it seems like the homework load might not be the issue. He seems like it just takes him long than other kids to do the work assigned to him. I'd work with the teachers to see what you guys should do about this. It might be that you'll have to have him stop after 45 mins regardless of weather he is done so he doesn't get too burned out.
My kid is going into 1st grade and she'll have 20+ mins of homework 4 days a week. We'll get a pass for 1 week of homework because we did an optional summer project. She'll start her homework at after school and we do get a tutor once a week which is helpful because they can do 2 nights of homework in on session. Between the tutor and after school I hope to only do 10 mins of homework or reading a night after dinner.
Have you considered hiring a high school student 1-2 nights a week? I'm not sure you need a tutor at $50. A HS at $10 might be just fine depending on what is going on.
DS loathes homework. LOATHES it. But I get why it's necessary. We always go through the process of him knocking it out at the start of the year, then he loses momentum with the repetition of it as the year gets into the middle. By the end of the year, we've usually met with his teachers to talk about how to keep his spirits up about the workload without letting him skate on the material.
That said, there are nights where he'll lollygag on a math worksheet that he can typically finish within 8 minutes. At 9, he's at the stage where he's trying to assert himself and push boundaries - which is fine. But the homework isn't going away, ever in his life, so we do our best to work with his teachers to help him get it done, learn the material, and not avoid the work the rest of the kids are doing.
I had to have this discussion with him this weekend, before it all begins again. He was able to do some math in his head for something totally casual, and marveled at it. I told him the reason he gets a math sheet each night during school with similar problems each time is for just that reason - so he can pull on it whenever he needs it, and he'll need it a lot. Not sure if that'll stick or not, but we're trying.
i had a conference with his teachers Friday where they all said he could work on each assignment for 15 min and then I could initial. Tonight's math homework was 21 questions. He did 16 in 15 minutes. I signed and it is done. He still has a reading assignment to do plus read his book.
His IEP holder called home today. First time we've ever really spoken, partly because we didn't need her last year. I spoke with her about my concerns and said I would give this new system of 15 min per assignment a try. I also mentioned he hasn't been pulled for OT yet this year and it is obvious he has regressed greatly over the summer. (my bad--first summer not doing private OT). From DS it sounds like she went into the classroom this afternoon to work with him one on one a little bit. Mostly organizing his agenda and making sure he knew everything he needed to do.
I'm going to see if he settles in over the next week or two and then decide if we need to call an IEP to address possible extra testing to see if there are other LDs going on besides just the ASD.
i had a conference with his teachers Friday where they all said he could work on each assignment for 15 min and then I could initial. Tonight's math homework was 21 questions. He did 16 in 15 minutes. I signed and it is done. He still has a reading assignment to do plus read his book.
His IEP holder called home today. First time we've ever really spoken, partly because we didn't need her last year. I spoke with her about my concerns and said I would give this new system of 15 min per assignment a try. I also mentioned he hasn't been pulled for OT yet this year and it is obvious he has regressed greatly over the summer. (my bad--first summer not doing private OT). From DS it sounds like she went into the classroom this afternoon to work with him one on one a little bit. Mostly organizing his agenda and making sure he knew everything he needed to do.
I'm going to see if he settles in over the next week or two and then decide if we need to call an IEP to address possible extra testing to see if there are other LDs going on besides just the ASD.
This may be a big part of the problem. if he is struggling with writing even more then usual it likely is a) making it take far longer then it would normally and B) he may be dragging his feet because it's hard to do the homework physically even if he knows the answer or how to do the problem.
I also mentioned he hasn't been pulled for OT yet this year and it is obvious he has regressed greatly over the summer. (my bad--first summer not doing private OT).
Get the OT to write down any regression she sees and maybe next summer you can get free summer OT in his IEP.
I also mentioned he hasn't been pulled for OT yet this year and it is obvious he has regressed greatly over the summer. (my bad--first summer not doing private OT).
Get the OT to write down any regression she sees and maybe next summer you can get free summer OT in his IEP.
I'm going to try. His private OT from last summer actually went to work for the schools this past year, but she had a baby last spring. I dropped the ball and didn't do any OT over the summer partly because he had so many camps.
I'm a bit relieved knowing his ASD specialist is now visiting him in the classroom so hopefully things can only improve.
Sorry! I know you've been stressed! Keep him to the 45 mins. The school year is just starting so you never know how things will shake out in a few months.
How much homework do you think is appropriate for a 4th grader?
Rule of thumb would be 10 minutes/grade most nights.
We are really struggling with this and he even has homework over the weekend although teacher said it isn't due until Tuesday....
I've already had a conference with the teacher. We are in tears every night (not just my kid... me too).
Are other parents in the class reporting the same issues, or are most of the kids managing the workload without any issues?
DS1 didn't have this much homework in 4th grade he only had a math worksheet with usually less than 10 problems that took him no time, study for the Friday spelling test and reading for 20 min every night.
That sounds a little light for 4th in my district.
DS2 is really struggling. He's a very different kid and unlike DS1 he's going to have to study all week for the spelling test on Friday, not just Friday morning. We haven't even started spelling words yet which is why I'm so scared. He has science reading and short questions to answer this weekend. He's been sitting doing them for over 45 min already and he's answered only 2 questions out of 10. His IEP says he can type but these are all fill in the blank sheets.
I have a kid who had an IEP through graduation. He has ASD, ADHD, Specific LD (dyslexia that impacts higher maths as well) and GAD. Why does he have an IEP and what does it say about accommodations for homework aside from allowing him to keyboard his work?
Two questions answered in 45 minutes suggests this is either an issue with cognition or attitude. Which is it? If it's cognition, does he not understand the task associated with the worksheets. Does he need differentiated instruction? Does he need to start on his homework with an aide so he's more comfortable with the task at home? Or is this behavior push-back because he isn't used to this amount of work? Is he overwhelmed at seeing a full worksheet? Does he have dysgraphia to the degree that handwriting drives up his anxiety so he shuts down.
Some tricks that can help, YMMV, would be to halve his workload and do only the odd or even questions/problems. Or to fold the paper in half, so he is only visually distracted by a portion of the work. He could do his answers on a laptop or alphasmart. He could have a scribe. Some teams decide to set a time limit for work so long as the student is truly working at his homework and not in refusal mode. A lot of families push to have the school take over homework even if it means an afterschool program or hiring someone. You might want to reopen his IEP if this is upsetting your household and get a more appropriate set of accommodations included.
This was a difficult thing at my house, too. At this age, we hoped that DS was college bound, so we validated his frustration with having to work harder and longer at tasks other kids had to. We did not abridge the requirements because DS needed more practice, not less, than most kids. We encouraged keyboarding to make written work less onerous; like a lot of kids with his dxs, he has some residual dysgraphia and written expression issues. He got better over time at accepting his differences as a student and was a lot more independent around everything but math. The district didn't differentiate math to the degree DS needed so DH basically home schooled math which got him through it in school. It paid off, DS is a college senior and doing really well. If DS wasn't bound for college, I would have made different choices.
We use the weekends to try to get our 20 minutes of reading done for the week so we just have to focus on the other stuff, but now we have this to deal with too.
This is a good strategy.
I like his teachers and his team, but I left the meeting upset that their goal is to prepare him for middle school. How about we prepare him for 5th grade???
The transition to middle school starts early, especially for kids who don't transition easily. DS's psych would say to set your sights out 5 years and work on the skills needed to help him thrive then. In some places 5th is middle, in my district 6th starts middle school practices with a building change for 7th.
My 5th grader hasn't brought home any homework except bring in a picture of himself to school.
I'd be as concerned about this.
I'm sorry you're not in a happier place. 4th was very difficult here, too. I often refer to it as the 9th circle of hell.