No Homework?! (1St Grade)

Research shows that homework is a waste of time until high school. You read that right, there is NO NEED for homewor until around 14.

In fact, the latest research on learning shows some fun stuff: studying less may be better than more! It's all about timing.

You have one smart teacher if she is aware of the latest research in learning and education.

My son's 4th and 5th grade teachers didn't believe in homework. They said if they can't get it done in class they are not doing their jobs. It was awesome! Enjoy it! Fast forward to 7th and he is doing great in school. He also seems to be getting most work done in study hall.

Love that he is able to enjoy the benefits of this homework research. My backpack was so heavy at that age I could hardly carry it!

I would ask why they're doing it and she's not and see what the reasoning is. Is it school policy to have HW? My child didn't get a lot of HW, probably a page a day + reading. I would ask the teacher those questions. For me, I also found it helpful to know what she was working on, to see the tens frames, to see her add double digits, etc. But you could ask her for a schedule if that's the kind of info you want. More homework doesn't equal more learning, so I would not panic yet.

You have to realize that most homework is busy work.
Most kids don't really need it for the lessons of the day to 'sink in' to their brains.
In first grade (and 2nd and 3rd and 4th, etc) - reading with him is really the BEST way of helping him learn - and it's fun for both of you.
Our son is in 11th grade and has been off the charts for lexile level since the 8th grade.
Although we're reading our own books at night - he still like to sit next to me while we're reading and settling down before bedtime.
If he has no homework for one grade - don't sweat it!
He's got 11 more grade plus maybe college that will MORE than make up for it - with a vengeance!
Just enjoy it!

your initial reaction was the best one.
if they're teaching appropriately, the kids do NOT need to 'reinforce' what they're learning in class. well, i should amend that to say if the curriculum is appropriate. i realize teachers are largely hamstrung.
but the bottom line is that little people, first graders, do not need to have the information hammered and hammered and hammered. it's counter-productive. it wears them out. they should be able to take the information offered and allow it to sink in through ongoing application, as the schoolwork progresses and real life offers them opportunities to see it in action. just reading and doing worksheets endlessly actually dulls the learning process.
i'm thrilled that at least some schools are getting it.
when i started homeschooling i thought i was prepared for how the speed in which 'learning' took place. but it still startled me. the reason we've needed homework to continue to frogmarch 'information' into our kids' heads is because of the awkward and inorganic way we present it to them in schools. i'm thrilled for your son that he's not yet being jammed into that paradigm. it'll happen to him all too soon.
khairete
S.

More and more and more research is proving that kids who DO NOT bring home busy work homework make higher scores on testing and have a higher success rate in school.

Some say it's because kids need that complete separation between school and home and some says it's because parents don't know what they're doing and screw up all the teacher's work so they have to reteach the material every time the kids come back to school.

Some even say it's because the teachers plan better because they know they have to leave time during the day for kids to finish up their work for that day.

Overall we've been in 2 different schools districts, girl is in 6th and she's never brought homework home regularly. We read 20-30 minutes per day when she was in pre-K and Kindergarten. Other than that we've had a minuscule amount of work brought home and that was just a paper or something she didn't complete during the day.

I think homework is a thing of the past and I'm glad. Our kids are able to be kids and do other things. Overall our students are scoring higher on their assessments and overall knowledge without doing a single homework assignment.

Homework doesn't make your kids smart, it makes your kids hate school with a passion because they're really rather be outside playing and enjoying being a kid.

I would be thrilled! This will give you and your son time to pursue topics that actually interest him. Have you seen the biography books in the bookstore or library? My girls loved them.

Studies show that in elementary school, homework has no correlation to learning. There is some correlation in middle school and a little more correlation in high school. Kudos to your son's teacher for being willing to be an "anomaly"!! Use the time you would've spent with your son doing homework with other things like reading.

I didn't have homework until I got to high school. It taught me time management and self motivation. It was my responsibility to get my work done during the school day. It has helped me immensely in my career. The only exception is reading, but I never saw that as homework. If he reads every day, the "worksheets" that are typical elementary homework are of negligible educational value. My son has them, we do them, but I would opt out in a heartbeat if we could with no worries about his general education.

No home work is AWESOME. Use this free time to perhaps play games with your little one that teach without being obvious. LOL

Board games or card games. Things like Old Maid, Chutes and Ladders, and/or Candy Land. When my kids were small. Monday nights were our family game night. It made us all look forward to Mondays.

Enjoy the break.

I think it's great. A great deal of homework is busy work, as stated below. I think you need to read with him every day - make that a fun thing, not a "required learning" assignment. Make sure he does a variety of activities including small motor skills (coloring, some fun writing even if he's just showing you what he learned today), find some games that use reading and writing, and be sure he gets outside and runs around and does free play. Kids need down time to develop critical thinking and creative expression skills. If we keep giving them worksheets and Q&A assignments, they just regurgitate what they learned earlier, and never learn to apply it, and they never learn to think on their own. We have too many kids in college who can't think critically, who have been "taught to the test" for so long, that they are only fact-based in their learning. Read what some many college professors are lamenting now, and you'll see the value of free play, which is when kids learn a lot. I think you're redefine what you mean by "fall behind"!

Most of the homework my son brought home in first and second grade was a total waste of time. He didn't really learn very much from it. As you mentioned, reading every day is probably the best and most important thing you can do. Start asking him questions about what you read, or what he reads to you, to work on his comprehension. Encourage him to ask for the meanings of words he doesn't know.

For math, you can get some great board games to play with him. He won't realize he's learning and you'll both have fun playing together. Qwirkle is a really good game with tiles that reinforces patterns and involves a lot of pre-math skills (math isn't all numbers - for little kids, patterning is critical too). We have a fantastic game called Number Rings that allows them to work on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The best part about it is you can keep it simpler while they are still learning and add the harder parts as they grow. http://smile.amazon.com/Discovery-Toys-3169-Number-Rings/...

Another great game is this Money game: http://smile.amazon.com/Learning-Resources-Money-Value-Ed... It really teaches them the value of the different coins and uses a lot of math to get what they need (each turn, they have to collect a certain amount of money in coins, sometimes without being able to use a certain type of coin...such as, make 47 cents without using any dimes). My son was counting money way before his friends were because of this game.

Starfall.com is a good website. If your school subscribes, you might be able to get passwords for different math sites at home. We use First in Math and ST Math, both of which my son can access at home. He loves it since it's on the computer and doesn't seem like homework.

I would love a world where we did not have homework!
Maybe, just maybe, your son's teacher knows that play is the ultimate work of the child and that as they learn new skills, they can incorporate the into play.

Games are a great way to augment learning. Double dice games (like Parcheesi or Sorry or Monopoly (or monopoly junior, etc) encourage addition/subtraction/number family experiences. Get out bananagram tiles and just make words together. Have fun doing some at-home science inquiry with easy magnet, water or other activities. Play yahtzee.

Read, go on hikes, get out into nature-- kids need so much more than school learning!

There is a load of research which suggests

My younger is in K, not first. But our only 'homework' is that the teacher asked parents to read to their kids for at least 15 minutes every night.

Thinking back to when my older was in 1st, the only homework was spelling homework due on Friday, and he only had to do that if he didn't pass the spelling pretest on Monday.

Now that he's in 4th, it's picked up to 1 page of math each night, and a reading/spelling packet that is 3 pages long which is handed out on Monday and due on Friday.

I love that my school has keeping up with the current research and not overloading kids with busywork.

Homework never did a thing for me other than drag my grades down, my kids are the same way. What were you like in school?

I would just monitor their test scores if they seem low discuss the lack of homework with the teacher.

My daughter went to a private school for K and 1st grade and they only got about 5 minutes of homework in 1st grade, none in K.

The school she went to had a great curriculum and most of the kids were ahead. We decided to home-school starting second grade (not because of that school, but for other reasons) so we cover a lot in a little time, I only have one to teach not 20+.

If you are concerned about it talk to the teacher so you can do stuff after school with your child, I would suggest learning games to keep it fun.

I don't think having hours of homework does any good for kids when they are in school for 6+ hours a day. They still need time to be kids and play.

This is normal. Homework for the sake of homework at this age is a waste of time. The only homework we had was daily home reading, studying spelling words and doing any assignments they didn't finish in class.

It is odd that the team of teachers do not have the same plan. At our school, the team follows a weekly lesson plan which includes homework. This is every grade level in the elementary.. K-5.

A typical first grade week at our schools...

Monday... brainstorm with the teacher in class on spelling patterns for the week and come up with words to review all week. No "set" homework on this except to review spelling. Most Language Arts work in class will focus on the spelling of the week so the children are exposed every day.
Monday... each student is given a small book assigned to their specific reading group to take home, read every night, have parents sign the book and return on Friday. This is to practice fluency and comprehension. Students receive "bucks" for returning the books with parent signature.

Wednesday.... 1 sided worksheet for math is sent home and due on Thursday.

Friday.. spelling test of 8 words and 2 "star" words focused on the week and 2 short sentence dictations.

Any work that is not completed in class is completed during recess time. Some children really need the extra time to complete the work, others are there in work completion because they are too talkative, active, etc in class and choose not to do the work in class.

The "homework" they have is very minimal and it basically helps them with a routine for more homework as they get older. Most children in this elementary are not bombarded with nightly homework unless they are just not productive in class and work completion during the day. More than ample time is provided during the class day to get work completed.

That is typical for our first grade in our district which is one of the highest rated districts in the US.

We had reading - has that started up yet? That usually starts the second month.

When my oldest was in grade one, we had spelling lists, printing to do, reading ... and it's declined every year.

My take on it was that some kids never got it done because they were in after school care programs, and had a lot of extracurricular activities. Whereas some kids had it all completed on time with extra help from parents. I'm not sure if they felt that gave an unfair advantage to those with the less busy schedules but they've done away with it here for the most part. The decision was made by the board I believe. Whenever I've asked about it, I get different answers. I don't think everyone agrees with it.

You can always do a little at home with your child. We do printing worksheets (I have a workbook that our OT gave us) and of course reading. We do arts and crafts too (coloring, cutting and gluing).

Good luck :)

My kids are a sophomore and 7th grade. They randomly had teachers that had either no homework or very light homework like only reading and memorizing math facts. They are both on an IEP now and neither get homework. They both have an elective class where they do all their homework and catch up classwork. I wish all teachers did this. The kids put in a full day as it is.

If you are concerned about him keeping up with the others then use some of the websites that have free print outs to work on. Good luck.

Go to PBSkids.org - there are TONS of learning games on there. He'll have fun and learn stuff.

My 10 year old granddaughter lives with me and this year so far has had no homework. I thought she maybe fibbing and told her it will show on her report card. Well she showed me her report card and it was 5 A'S and 1 B!!!! BTW she is in 5th grade and up till now has always had alot of homework

my son is in K. and when he brings home a paper with tons of corrections on it dh will sit down with him and have him work on it a little bit. (mostly just practicing printing skills, but also some other things)
if you think homework is necessary then make up your own and have your child do it.

I do kind of agree that homework does not really enforce learning--more like forced learning. BUT it depends on the child. Even today at 16, one of my girls needs her homwork to help her remember and reinforce what she learned in school. My son, not as much--just more for him to forget to turn in. When my oldest were beginning school, we talked about what was done that day. When they brought home papers, we talked about waht they did. If they brought something home that was not done very well, we talked about it and went over it. I do this now with my 7 yr old. Also, when we read, we talk about the story. They loved talking about larger books like Charlotte's Web and Trumpet of the Swan. It helps with comprehension and seeing things a different way--and helps make a story fun.

Updated

I do kind of agree that homework does not really enforce learning--more like forced learning. BUT it depends on the child. Even today at 16, one of my girls needs her homwork to help her remember and reinforce what she learned in school. My son, not as much--just more for him to forget to turn in. When my oldest were beginning school, we talked about what was done that day. When they brought home papers, we talked about waht they did. If they brought something home that was not done very well, we talked about it and went over it. I do this now with my 7 yr old. Also, when we read, we talk about the story. They loved talking about larger books like Charlotte's Web and Trumpet of the Swan. It helps with comprehension and seeing things a different way--and helps make a story fun.

Reading was the only homework my son had last year as a first grader. The teacher would send home a different book each night along with a list of sight words to practice. He would have to write the title in his book log to show that he had read it. We spend time playing games together, one that my son really likes is a game called Blokus which is great for building math skills- geometry, spatial awareness, logic.