Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Homework


Homeschoolers don't have homework, for obvious reasons.

Mi'ita's little ballet buddy was complaining about the mountain of homework she has, thinking that she may have to quit ballet because it is too much. She has 3 math worksheets and a page out of her math workbook, spelling, and a speech she has to give tomorrow. She says that she spends almost as much time on her homework (about 2 hours per night) as we do on our entire "formal" part of homeschooling--math and languages. (We unschool everything else.)

I don't really know much about teaching math. This is the first time I've ever done it. Spelling I do know something about, though.

Spelling is tricky. There is ample research out there that says that memorizing lists of spelling words is not effective at improving spelling in regular situations, no matter what grade you get on your spelling test. Not much actually works, really. What is recommended is doing a lot of reading. Good readers are usually decent spellers. I find for myself that writing a lot helps, too, especially on the computer with the spellcheck on because it gives you immediate feedback.

The bad thing is that public school teachers have a huge amount of pressure to improve their students' spelling. The pressure comes with standardized tests. I don't think they test spelling independently. Maybe a little. What they do test is writing samples where the piece of writing is graded in four areas--voice, conventions, ideas, and organization. Students usually do adequately in voice, okay in ideas, eh in organization, and bomb in conventions. Conventions includes punctuation, spelling, paragraphing, etc.

So they give a lot of spelling tests, and a lot of spelling homework. I would guess that half of what Mi'ita has gotten in the past was spelling. It doesn't help any, according to research, but at least the teachers feel like they are trying.

I don't know if doing pages of math worksheets helps math competence. My friend says no. I know that it certainly convinced Mi'ita that math bites. I tried to find some research on this subject but it's more than I can wade through in an evening. My gut feeling is that using math in real situations and tackling one big problem that takes a lot of thought to solve would be more effective than a bunch of math problems. I'm not sure about that, though.

A lot of parents get all weird about homework, too. Some insist that teachers aren't doing a good job if there isn't a lot of assigned homework--they call in and complain to the teacher, requesting homework. Knowing that the busywork that is sent home isn't effective at helping their child learn would come as a blow to a lot of parents. They would probably still insist that doing the homework instills "discipline" even if it doesn't instill spelling or math skills. Playing a game with their kid wouldn't feel like work, nor would a teacher be able to grade it. I wonder if a lot of the pressure for homework is a grasp to help their kid get a good grade.

Grades are things that I have very happily jettisoned.

Anyway, I think it's tragic for Mi'ita's ballet buddy to quit ballet because she has too much homework to do. Is the value of the work done more than the value of taking ballet?

2 comments:

  1. I think all of that is right on, with the possible exception of basic math facts (addition/subtraction up to 20, multiplication tables). Sarah's teacher gives timed, 100-problem tests, one each for addition, subtraction, multiplication and whole-number division, and you have to be able to pass them with 100 percent before you can move to the next one. It took her ages, but she finally passed the multiplication one, and now she can tell you 9x7, 8x6, whatever, as quickly as she can tell you her name. I honestly don't think she could have done so without that constant repetition, and frankly, it drives me crazy when kids have to either pull out a calculator or count on their fingers to figure out 4x6. Rebecca knows math concepts, but still counts on her fingers to figure out things like 9+7. I'm thinking of taking a page from Sarah's teacher's book to get her over that hurdle.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree that math facts are a necessary thing to learn (June is still struggling with the basic times table), though I think mixing rote memorization with fun games with numbers really helps - things like the tricks for "divisible by 3? do the digits add up to something divisible by 3? then yes" and skip-counting beads. Having to practice enough to get good at something is necessary; having to do busy work so your teacher shows stacks of paper is not.

    Spelling = Reading. Read often, sometimes read aloud (otherwise words that you should know don't sound right so don't get spelled right - Kendall, for instance, thought "misled" for the longest time was pronouced "my-zeld" and couldn't spell "misled" when asked). I learned more about spelling and understanding words when I took Latin and found out what all those funny prefixes meant than anything. I would love to take Greek next...

    ReplyDelete