I bought my kid this workbook to practice phonics and writing. It’s labeled Grade K, so you can imagine how difficult the work is. Mostly circle the matching picture, writing dot-to-dot letters, that kind of stuff. Anyhoo, I’m flipping through the book and notice that it has an answer key! Not a teaching guide, mind you, an answer key. WTF? Do they really think that parents are incapable of grading a kindergarten worksheet? This is just scary on so many levels…
Hey come on now those workbooks can be pretty tough!!
Hukt on fonics wurked fer me!
tatertot - ditto. I have bought the same type of books for my kids, with subjects including math, reading, spelling, etc. All of them come with answer keys.
Now, however, I am grateful for those - the kids are in 7th and 5th grade, and when it comes to the math questions, I would rather look it up than figure it out - especially with the long division with remainders, and the fractions. Okay, so by the time I’ve finished work and am checking her homework in the evenings, I’m lazy 
Her homework from school, though, I figure out.
Scary thing is - I do know more than one set of parents who would actually need the answer key, even for the simpler stuff.
Maybe they just didn’t want to draw that line, as to at what level an answer key is required.
What I always thought was worse though, was that many of my own high school textbooks had the answers in the back.
I’m not surprised it has an answer key. Who wants to be the one who decides where to draw the line? You don’t want to assume that everyone is English speaking, for one thing. My college runs an english as a second language course, and to help their children with workbooks can be a challenge if they just moved here. Also, when I helped my son with K and G1 workbooks, in some cases, I wasn’t sure which letter they wanted pictures matched up with. Some things have several common names, and some of that depends on the geographical area in which you live. Obviously not the majority of it, but I have to admit that their were certain pictures where the immediate common name did not have the letter I would have picked beside it. Weird things like picking P for “pane” over window or glass. Huh?
Since I’m currently enrolled in a math course with the answers in the back of the book, I’ll let you know that the answers are just there to double check your own work. When a question requires a page or more of calculations to get the answer, the teacher will definitely notice that you’re just putting the answer down. By a certain level of math,you’re no longer looking at questions like 5 x 4 = ? anymore. If you do all the work right and make one small error calculating your final answer, you only get docked a half point anyway. The method is worth most of the points awarded to a question.
Maybe they were thinking of those families where kids play school together. (Hey, don’t laugh…it happens!) I’m the youngest of 5 kids, and I played so much school with my brothers and sisters, starting when I was about 4 years old! Of course, I never got to be the teacher :(, but they DID grade my papers!
Anyway, just a thought…
Hey now! The answer key is for those children whose parents aren’t parenting, and who have to grade the exercises on their own!! C’on now. Just because you happen to think “parent” is a verb in addition to a noun, is no way to snub those poor folks who for some reason don’t think parenting is a priority. [cough cough – I don’t sound too much like Dr. Laura now, I do? heh heh]