Mary, I totally agree with that idea. For my son, we go by age level for the amount of homework he should be doing. For example, if he were in 3rd grade right now, on average kids in our district are supposed to have 30 minutes of homework and 20 minutes of reading. If he were back in 3rd grade, he'd never have to work at all to get good grades. We skipped him to the point where he has to spend about the same amount of time as other kids his age to get "A's." I wouldn't want him spending hours every night on homework or studying, I also didn't want him to get in the habit of skating through without putting in any effort at all. I think he should be developing the study habits that other kids his age are developing, and a lot of our decisions are actually based on that. If he were spending more than 50 minutes combined on homework I would feel like I let him skip too far (I count reading text books as his reading time.... he reads a lot on his own, but that's not homework) So since 8th and 4th grade had him spending the same amount of time on homework/study as an average 3rd grader, I felt like that was an appropriate placement.
