Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy how much homework should my DD11 be doing?

Yes I regret this although because by 6th grade he developed anxiety disorder. Since we have tested DS and found that he has low-average PS & WM it explains things a lot. We weren't the only ones who thought the homework load was excessive but looking back on it the same amount of work probably took him even longer than some of the other students. Most of the class time was taken up by group projects, in depth class discussions, and other good projects for gifted kids. And most of the seat work sent home for the students to do on their own.

Ironically I put him in this program because it didn't give him as much busywork. It he had stayed in a regular class with GATE as an extra pullout, he would have been expected to do a huge host of boring busywork and only be given the more challenging stuff as extra. I had already determined that this didn't work well for him.

There was a movie made about homework a few years ago ("Race to Nowhere" was the appropriate title). I remember way way way too much homework - to the point where it was harmful as other posters noted. At some point the workload became so irrational that cheating was widespread as a coping mechanism.

We supplement school with projects at home - but the nice thing about that is we can turn the projects off if it stops being fun and constructive. It is a lot harder to stem the flood of school homework.

My dd11 rarely has homework. Her school is a private school for gifted and their philosophy is that the kids should work hard during school hours and that afterschool should be for recreation. Sometimes dd has reading to finish if they are using a lengthy text; or studies for a test; but there is no regularly assigned homework. Dd does study hard at school and I know that she's learning a ton so I love the school's philosophy. I agree with others that you should check with the school.

I hate homework. Personally, I would like to cut it back to a bit of math practice and nightly reading (of anything) in the primary grades. I suppose a bit of penmanship or spelling might be called for in K-2.

One reason some high school students are spending so much time on homework is that they are not smart enough for some of the classes they are taking. Pushing everyone to take AP classes has become a political crusade. Some AP Calculus teachers may be assigning too much homework, but there are also some students taking AP Calculus who have not mastered algebra and trigonometry and therefore struggle with calculus problems.

My ds 12 in 6th grade has quite a bit of homework. Too much homework is one thing but I don't really get the no homework crowd. When you look at where these kids are headed, study is a huge.

What am I missing?

In my experience, a great deal of homework is nothing more than busywork or repetition of things already learned.

I think the major difference with college study requirements is that one is typically not in class nearly as many hours as a 1-12 grader is -- thus, there's time to study or work on assignments outside of class.

On the other hand learning & practicing to do homework before you hit college is often very helpful for students. I do think some amount of homework is necessary in junior high/H.S. Learning to be prepared for class isn't instinctive for many kids. Studying for tests, reading books, practicing math program, writing an report, memorizing a poem, memorizing/practicing vocabulary for a foreign language. And for many kids having a quite space works better than a crowded classroom for learning these things.

I'm even in favor on small amounts for early elementary students. IMO one of the primary uses for homework in the early elementary grades is for teacher-parent communication. It's much easier to accept and understand how your student is doing in the classroom when small amounts of work are sent home for a parent to supervise. (Key here is SMALL amounts) Supervising my children do homework in the younger grades gave me a much better idea of how my children handled grade level work. (Struggling, bored, taking forever to do something easy.) I got a much better idea of issues both my children had watching them work on assignments than just seeing the same assignments returned with comments/grades.

Bluemagic, I agree that reasonable practice of report writing, working out problems, memorization, etc. prior to college is appropriate and necessary. However, school systems don't seem to be very good at balancing assignments between classes (i.e., so that one student doesn't wind up with hours of homework each evening).

DS11 & DD11 are 6th graders, which is middle school here so a completely different ballgame from 5th grade last year. Regarding 5th grade, which is still elementary school here, there should not be a huge amount of homework if your DD is not 2E and a good student. As 5th graders last year, DS/DD had periodic projects in different subject areas and math and reading/language homework 3-4 days a week. However, they usually managed to get most/all of the regular homework done at school or while waiting to be picked up. I believe that was true for a good segment of the students in GT classes/groups.

6th grade/middle school is a bit different due to more subjects covered and the expectation of independence in preparation for high school. Again, how much homework really depends on the individual kid and specific teacher. DS and DD are in most of the same classes and I can only say that if I didn't parent both kids, I would have had a skewed view of how much homework is given. It's not just a level of giftedness issue but particular strengths/interests and personality. For example, DS would have just fired off a couple of pages, most of it in class or between classes while DD would have labored over several pages in a couple of hours at home. Much of their homework now involves extensive writing, whether it is a 3-page lab report for science or a 2-page researched essay for language arts. There are also periodic projects, which cannot be completed in school due to time constraints. Math homework is probably 4 days a week and likely helpful practice/application of new materials introduced in class now that they are in Pre-Algebra (DD) and Geometry (DS).

As for studying, if they have learned and assimilated the materials when they are taught, then studying beyond a quick review is likely unnecessary for most bright kids at this early stage.

In short, I think 5th graders should only average 30-45 minutes a day while 6th graders should expect 1 to 2 hours. Again, if the kid works fast like DS, then homework will only take a fraction of the time.