Homework: Why Children Enter The Fourth Grade

The driving force behind homework is to reinforce taught concepts from classroom instruction. Homework provides students opportunity to practice targeted skills without taking up valuable classroom instructional time. Students benefit from the routine homework establishes and the responsibility it promotes in children at a young age. This helps develop essential practices in turn setting them up to become lifelong learners. Beyond the academic opportunity homework provides, it additionally encourages positive long-lasting lessons for future success in life. Homework supports students to develop responsibility through managing materials, prioritizing tasks, and balancing time management of assignments.

For the most part, education in the United States has revolved around the idea of a “work hard, and succeed” system. Educators strongly push for this idea and are in a way obliged to extend learning by assigning more work, which they are unable to complete in a school setting. In turn, they rely on homework to expand knowledge beyond the classroom. Homework has become what may seem a positive influence on education and test scores in the United States. However, It has also become one the biggest burdens on high school students.This burden fails to reflect today’s advancing technological society. It needs to conform to a more individualized and purposeful approach for students.

Homework was designed so students would go home and practice what it is they learned in class and the concept would then be reinforced. However, many would agree that homework, no longer serves this purpose. For example, “we pay almost no attention to how to improve its design and content...Homework remains an orphan child of the educational excellence movement.” (Source B) Despite this article, arguing against a homework decrease, the author agrees that homework doesn’t have the same educational purpose as it was designed to. Teachers and parents don’t pay any attention as to how to improve homework in order to make it beneficial to the student and not just busy work. Also, students may chose to take tougher classes that require more homework, but it does not mean that homework is boosting their achievement. (Source C) Higher achieving

In The Battle 0ver Homework, Harris Cooper defines homework as, “tasks assigned to students by school teachers that are intended to be carried out during non-school hours” (27) Common homework assignments might include reading, writing, problems to solve, a school project, or other skills to be practiced. The purpose of homework is to assist in reinforcing what was taught in class. Sometimes the purpose is to gather extra information beyond what was taught that day. There are many teachers who don’t understand the meaning of homework and just give it as something to keep students busy. Homework should be given to students on a regular basis but only in reasonable amounts.

Homework has been around for many years, and parents have had many questions and concerns about the impact it has on their children. Kate McReynolds states in her article Homework that, “In 1957, the Soviet launch of Sputnik challenged the intellectual and military might of the United States. The New York Times ran a series of articles describing the Soviet educational system as superior to the United States’ system. Congress passed the National Defense Education Act and America’s youngsters were charged with restoring the nation’s competitive edge” (2). This means that schools are under the pressure to make sure their students excel and work extremely hard. So by doing so, they assign homework, which will progress to other issues for the students.

This article was about changing the delivery of homework to give kids more autonomy and relatedness to improve their attitude and motivation towards homework.

Some parents believe that the homework should require more from the kid. Instead of being busy

Homework can cause stress for some children, leading to issues such as sleep deprivation. We start at nine and get out at three, that’s enough already. Adult come home from exhausted from work and yet they can’t understand when their kids have trouble at the end of a

I remember back in fifth grade, I had this ultimate child-daddy conversation. This conversation always went as follows, "Dad I am tired of doing homework", he then would say, "Now hard work never killed anyone", then I would say, "I know, but I don't want to be the first!". It was not until later, in my high-school years when I realized that homework is about personal advancement, not only in terms of being a student, but as being an individual transitioning from childhood to adulthood. Homework aids in that transition by reinforcing an individual to develop a strong mentality, and establish relations towards preparation for the "real-world".

The purpose for assigning homework in my classroom is to reinforce material learned in class, for further practice, and to develop self-management skills. Homework also serves a purpose in connecting the classroom to the student’s parents. Homework will allow students to share with their parents what they are learning in class and allow the parents to be involved.

The skills developed while doing homework prepares the student for higher grade levels, and the workplace as they will be essential in their lives. It does this by making the work become more difficult gradually, and often gives a bigger workload as the student grows. Homework is designed to help you understand, further your knowledge and to prepare you for what it will be like in the future. The¬ Teacher Magazine writes that homework in primary school, doesn’t have as much impact as secondary school, and is used to prepare the student for higher grade levels, i.e. high school, university and the workplace. The South-Western Education Laboratory writes that homework has more benefits in secondary school, than in primary school and that primary school prepares the student for higher grade levels. As stated in the first point, one of the biggest benefits of homework is the sense of responsibility that you develop from doing it, which is a fantastic trait to have and is vital in life. This shows that homework is important and should be done by

Historically, homework has been an essential aspect of the American educational system because teachers assign homework to enhance students’ learning outcomes. According to Cooper, homework involves tasks assigned to students by schoolteachers; these tasks are meant to be carried out during noninstructional

As an active member of the school board we have been curious on how important a child’s homework from grade K-12 is to parents and the positive and negative outcomes on a student academically when parents actively involve themselves in their child’s homework. The school board fears that if parents are too involved child’s k-12 homework, it might have a more negative effect on students academically than a positive effect and cause tension between a parent and their child, causing the child to hold back on asking for help with their homework. The school has been trying to come up with ways to help more students achieve in school so parental involvement in children’s homework has been a highly discussed conversation with the K-12 school boards throughout several states in the recent years. Despite the concerns recent studies have shown that parent involvement in children’s homework can be very beneficial and help students succeed in school in many different ways and even help better prepare them for college as opposed to a parent not being involved. Parental involvement in children’s homework could be the missing key to success for children’s education.

Some people don't know exactly what homework is. Homework is defined as an out of class activity assigned to students as an extension or elaboration of classroom work(KidSource). There are three types of homework teachers generally give out. The first is Practice assignments, they are assignments that reinforce newly acquired skills or knowledge(KidSource). An example of these assignments is writing definitions down for new words

Elementary education is something many people are familiar with. Some may have taught in elementary schools, researched elementary education, or at the least, attended elementary school. School work and projects assigned to be completed at home are a large part of primary education, and most people who have completed grades one through six have experienced homework themselves, but does familiarity mean necessity? How important is homework in elementary education? Is it helpful or possibly even harmful? Educators and psychologists have conducted many studies on homework in elementary education, and it is an important subject (Healy). Children learn and refine routines and skills related to school in their elementary years (Healy). Even though homework is often considered a requirement of education, the benefits of homework for elementary age children are inconclusive, and homework has been shown to degrade young students morale and lower test scores (Reilly). Homework should be greatly reduced or even banned in elementary schools.