How much do you "participate" in your kids' homework assignments?

[Doran]

We are so new at this "building school" thing and are just seeing the first of the homework assignments come in after the kids' first four days at school. All of my instincts as a participatory parent are coming to the fore. My youngest, though old enough to be more independent when compared to some kids, was always rather dependent on me to guide her through lessons. Now, with homework, I'm not sure how much of this I should continue to do since I am no longer her primary teacher. Have any of you experienced this dilemma and if so, how did you resolve it?

[ack25]

I think it depends upon the grade and the age.
My dd is going into 4th grade. At back to school night, I usually try to ask about what is expected of the child and the parent regarding homework participation. In first, I helped my child understand the directions, sat with her, checked her work and checked her corrections. In second grade, she started the work, she asked me any questions, I sat with her and checked her work. In third, I remained in the same room while she indepentently did her work. It was her job to ask me specific questions if a concept was not understood. If needed, I would explain but then perhaps let the teacher know via email that dd did not get the concept as taught in class (just as an fyi.) We'll see what 4th brings....

[Janet in Toronto]

With my high school son, I don't really do anything except be there to answer questions (or fob him off on his father if it has to do with physics, LOL!). Oh, I try to read whatever novel/play he's reading in English so that we can discuss essays, etc. Sometimes, I help him organize the outline of an essay if he's feeling stuck, and I typically proof read a close-to-final draft.

With my middle schooler, I look at his agenda book to see what he has to do, kinda keep an eye on whether he's on task, confirm that he's done all of the assignments (he's a little bit spacy and sometimes just forgets to do work), and then I spot check his work (a couple of nights a week, I look over his homework and "suggest" changes.)

[mcconnellboys]

Because my son was a sophomore when he went back to school, I just tend to monitor his grades and make suggestions regarding him getting help if he seems to be having a problem in any particular class.

If he wants a study partner when he's studying for tests, I'll quiz him over his notes or vocab, etc.

Because I type so much faster than he does, I will often type up work for him. Once it's on the computer in a draft form, he can then come in and make changes, additions, etc. to finalize it. If I see problems when I'm typing up something, then I may suggest changes.

He sometimes talks to me about the things he's covering in literature, history or religion, but not on a regular basis.

[Breann in WA]

I agree that it should depend on their individual ability level, which is of course related also to their age. My youngest ds6 needs A LOT of help. His 1st grade homework is almost all writing exercises and he hates it. Dd7, however, has always been an independent worker and a good reader and writer. I supervise her 2nd grade homework, but she can do most of it on her own. My oldest ds15 is a sophomore in hs and doesn't want me up in his homework business! Much of it I don't know if I would be much help with anyway (I'm quite impressed with his hs), so he takes it entirely upon himself to get it done, asking for help only when absolutely necessary.

[Doran]

I think much of my dilemma is that my 6th grader's age and abilities don't necessarily line up. She has some mild learning differences (dyslexia-like) that have caused her to struggle, across the board, all through her homeschooling years. She has been with a reading tutor for over a year and went from reading well below grade level to finally scoring at grade level on her last tests. We have only ever formally tested the reading, but other subjects suffer as well. Given these issues, our daughter has always needed (and received) a great deal of guidance. Shoot, I still have to help her remember to capitalize at the beginning of a sentence and to put a period at the end! Thus far, at the advice of her guidance counselor (long story for another post), we have not disclosed any of this to her teachers. So, while I want them to know what her real capabilities are, I don't want to toss her into the lion's den either. I want her teachers to see her strengths and weaknesses for what they really are without pigeon-holing her into a classification of being "slower", because that doesn't really suit her. It's a tricky situation, one I imagine we'll resolve bit by bit - and sooner than later - as we grow more accustomed to how things work in the public school setting.

[Melinda in VT]

For me, it depends on the kid and the grade.

One of my kids needs almost no parental involvement in homework unless it specifically says "ask your parent" or "explain to your parent." I usually glance over his homework, but if things are crazy that day I don't stress about not looking at it. If I find an error, I'll tell him which item has the problem, but I let him figure out what the problem is.

His twin sister frequently gets overwhelmed with assignments and needs help figuring out how to break them down into smaller chunks or suggestions to use her base 10 blocks to help her. It's getting better every year. (She's now in 3rd grade.)

My older son (entering 7th) prefers to be independent. I ask questions, "Do you have any homework? How is your social studies project going? I'm heading to the store tomorrow, so if you need me to get you anything for your project, let me know before you go to bed." And then I stand back and let him experience the consequences, good or bad, of his choices. I figure he's still at the age where a poor grade is a small price to pay for lessons in reading directions, budgeting time, etc. And although he's had an occasional misstep, on the whole he's doing very well.

You might want to create a checklist for your daughter to include things like capitals and periods, and then you just have to remind her to look at the checklist when she is wrapping up an assignment.

[Breann in WA]

My ds15 is and always has been a terrible mechanical and gramatical writer. I still have to check his capitalization and punctuation, too. At about your dd's age, I think, I was wondering the same thing. How much to I intervene, or is it better to let the natural consequences of turning in messy work filled with errors (in theory, criticism from the teacher and poorer grades) teach him to write more carefully. Well, in hindsight I didn't intervene nearly enough and in our schools there didn't happen to be any natural consequences like I was counting on. Even now in high school honors classes, he can turn in work full of errors and get a passing grade with no mention of his mechanics. I guess teachers just don't have the time. So, needless to say, his writing did not improve much when it was left up to him to get the most out of his classroom education.

We've since come to an agreement that I can be a spell-checker for him, but nothing more. No suggestions on sentence or paragraph structure, etc. Just grammar (inconsistency of verb tense is a big thing for him, for example), mechanics (capitalization, punctuation, run-ons, etc.), and spelling. Apparantly I've been over-critical in the past! I'm going to be more careful with my younger ones. My poor first born (aka "the guineapig")!

What I do now to help him recognize those errors himself is put a little dot in the margin at each line (eventually each paragraph) that contains errors and he has to hunt them down and correct them himself. He's improved at this over the summer, is realizing what his most common mistakes are, and is catching them more before he "turns in" his assignment to me.

[tibbyl]

I provide help or giudance when asked by my children.

[AmyZ-afterschooler]

I very much disagree with the guidance counselor who told you not to disclose her learning issues to her teachers. The teachers have only a limited amount of time to make judgements about her abilities, especially in middle and high school when students go between many different teachers in a day.

I found with my son that his teachers were making judgements based on his mistakes at the beginning of school years rather than on the potential that he has based on test scores.

For my son (who will be starting 4th grade soon) I try to stick to an advisory role on homework though I've helped him "bump up" some assignments so he'd find them interesting. We also talked to the teacher about his difficulties with writing and he uses a computer to do most of his writing assignments. It's a delicate balance of involvement, but I focus on my ideas of a big picture of education and fill in based on those ideas.

[Doran]

I very much disagree with the guidance counselor who told you not to disclose her learning issues to her teachers. The teachers have only a limited amount of time to make judgements about her abilities, especially in middle and high school when students go between many different teachers in a day.

I found with my son that his teachers were making judgements based on his mistakes at the beginning of school years rather than on the potential that he has based on test scores.

For my son (who will be starting 4th grade soon) I try to stick to an advisory role on homework though I've helped him "bump up" some assignments so he'd find them interesting. We also talked to the teacher about his difficulties with writing and he uses a computer to do most of his writing assignments. It's a delicate balance of involvement, but I focus on my ideas of a big picture of education and fill in based on those ideas.



I like thinking of it as focusing on the big picture of her education. I have made an appointment with her two teachers for this coming Wednesday because my gut is screaming about the fact that they are missing vital pieces of information about her. I think we will both feel better when everything is on the table. I can tell that her L.A. teacher, anyhow, has some idea of where her strengths are because she came home this week with a level 8 vocabulary book. Cracked me up, because dd had expressed worry over it thinking it was a spelling book!!! And, it's Wordly Wise 3000, a curriculum I'm very familiar with from our years of homeschooling. Funny how much that one little thing made me feel better.

Thanks for your input.

[AmyZ-afterschooler]

my gut is screaming about the fact that they are missing vital pieces of information about her.
I know exactly what you mean! I like to think of my son's education as a team effort of the school and home and when that team isn't working together I get concerned, whether it's the school not talking to me or me not talking to the school.

Very cool on the curriculum the LA teacher sent home! I got the same sort of warm fuzzy when my son's school started backing up the use of Handwriting Without Tears that I had started at home because of his challenge with dysgraphia. I'm not sure what we would have done if the school had not agreed with the use of a different program to help him write.

Good luck! The big picture is what helps keep me sane afterschooling!