“What she was getting for homework was more busywork. “I felt that it was inappropriate for that age,” said Orti. Orti said Mia spent 30 minutes reading every night and an hour on the packet. “She could read the words, but she had no idea what they meant,” said Orti. She describes her daughter as a quick learner who was already reading in kindergarten but still needed her help with word problems and science worksheets. Orti said the packet included work on phonics, spelling, reading comprehension, and social studies. But that’s not stopping educators in many places from assigning homework.ĭelilah Orti said that every Monday her daughter, Mia, a kindergartner last year in the Miami-Dade Public Schools system in Florida, received a homework packet with about 25 worksheets that were due at the end of that week. Those guidelines don’t even mention kindergarten. In high school, students may exceed that recommendation depending on the difficulty of the courses they choose. So children in 2nd grade would have 20 minutes, those in 3rd grade would have 30 minutes, and so on. Instead, both the National Education Association and the National PTA endorse Cooper’s so-called 10-minute rule, which calls for roughly 10 minutes of homework a night per grade level beginning in 1st grade. Studies by researchers including Harris Cooper, a Duke University psychology and neuroscience professor who wrote The Battle Over Homework, have consistently shown that homework has minimal academic benefits for children in the early-elementary years. That’s a question a lot of parents are asking, especially when it comes to the youngest pupils. “The first week he went to school he asked us why he was having to do schoolwork at home.” “He doesn’t like it,” said Sheppard, who lives in Pulaski, Va.
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