My son is also in 3rd grade. I do a fair amount of helping with his homework, because really, that’s the only one-on-one instruction he’s going to get. Homework is usually math. I will let him do the worksheet, then go through it with him, telling him which answers are wrong and helping him figure out how to get the right answer. For written work - definitely not his strong suit - we’ll talk about what he’s going to write before he writes it, then I’ll help him correct spelling and grammar until we reach the point of frustration. Basically, I feel that I’m accomplishing the same thing by helping him with his homework that you’re striving for by not helping.
I should point out that in our school homework is not graded for anything other than completeness. I don’t have any concerns about whether the help he’s getting is fair, and this way I know that the material in question is being discussed with him in a way that makes sense to him. We live in a school district of serious over-achievers. It takes a lot to keep up!
I never did homework for my kids or even helped. They finished 2,1,1 in their H. S. classes and are fully responsible adults. Make of that what you will.
I do this too but I confirm with the teacher that it’s OK since it usually results in my kids getting 100% on all their homework and it would not be fair to the other kids if it wasn’t common practice. I want them to learn how to do the work - that’s what math homework is for, they can be graded on the test and quizzes.
As far as writing assignments go I was pretty shocked to find out that no one had told them how to prepare an outline. So I guided them through that process but made them do all the writing. As before I made sure the teacher was aware of the situation.
Spell-check is cheating now? Now you’re just getting ridiculous. The only way to know the correct spelling of words is to look them up in a dictionary. And spell-check is just a dictionary that works quickly.
There’s nothing wrong with using spell-check, but I’d encourage your child to go through it word by word and actually pay attention to what the misspelled words were and what the correct spelling is.
When my kid was in kindergarten, I ran into a phenomenon which is kind of like the tragedy of the commons, but not quite - don’t know if it has a name.
Anyway, the teacher’s instructions specifically said the paper-plate mask was to be the kid’s own work. So I let my 5yo glue some crap to the plate, and color it a bit. Then I saw it hanging up with the other kids’, and it looked like a bucket of shit in comparison. I felt bad for my daughter. It was clear the parental help on the others was more in-depth. (And yes, many of the other kids do have a better eye for design than mine, but the difference was greater than that.) I decided to up my level of help to be more in line with the rest of the class.
So we’ve had two projects this year in 2d grade, which I’ve been very involved in. I don’t by any means do all the work for her, but she’s 7, and she’s clueless about things like doing a mock-up, or rough drawing before working on the final piece, or using mixed media, or arranging things so they look neat and balanced. I felt like I went a little overboard on this last one (I wound up getting into it and sewed a soft-sculpture donut for part of it), but I still tried to only make suggestions or ask questions, and execute what she didn’t have the skill for when she wanted to do something cool.
As for homework, a good example is Monday night. She had to sort 15 statements into “fact” or “opinion,” a concept remarkably difficult for that age level, apparently. I “helped” a lot, but I never gave her an answer. It was entirely Socratic method, which I hope helped her internalize the ideas. I can’t imagine just leaving her to it and saying, “they should have taught you that in class - try by yourself and if you get them all wrong oh well.”
OUr kids are in grade 4. The teachers have told us that the homework doesn’t count toward their marks, since the teachers can’t be sure of the process that was followed and that it is their own work.
We help our kids out by letting them do their homework and then sitting down with them and figuring out where they went wrong and why. We then make them go back and correct any errors they may have and try to make sure they understand why. Unfortunately it falls on deaf ears a good portion of the time.
They need more teaching than goes on in the classroom.
It’s cheating the person using it if its used in a way that discourages learning the spelling.
It’s not just a dictionary. The process is automated to the point where it is possible to correct spellings in a document without really noticing which words are involved, let alone the specific spellings involved. The incidence of spellcheck-introduced errors (“corrected” to the wrong common word) is proof of this.
An actual dictionary requires looking at the word, taking in the spelling, and then reconstructing the word in one’s work. The process is more effective because it forces the word to pass through the brain, and the greater effort involved tends to fix the experience in the brain more than just click-click-clicking through a document spellcheck in the last seconds before running off the hard copy.
Even skipping the dictionary and asking someone (who knows) is likely to be better than electronic spellchecking, seems to me, in that the writer still has to process each letter in sequence.
My kids are in grade 2 and kindergarten (yes, my kindergartener has homework) and, as parents, we are expected to help with homework.
The grade 2 gets math ‘help’ in the form of us checking the answers and telling her what is wrong (we only get into more detailed teaching of concepts if she is getting things wrong repeatedly) and we help with writing by getting her to identify grammar errors herself and correct them, getting her to recheck the words she knows how to spell and by showing her how to spell words that she really doesn’t know. (Note: they are not required to hand in anything that is spelled correctly but if she is doing it at home, I insist much to her chagrin).
When she does projects, I help her interpret the instructions and will help her with supplies to complete it (while not getting carried away). Again, I ensure that all is spelled right and is grammatically correct (because it is part of my value system).
The little guy wouldn’t be able to do his homework at all without constant parental supervision. He can’t read. He is just learning to write letters and needs constant feedback about it. Also, his attention span is about 15 seconds and he needs someone to keep him on task.
In other words, I think helping is a-ok (in terms of guiding them along but not answering the questions for them).
I suspect letting them do it themselves is going to get more challenging as they get in higher grades. It must be so much easier just to take over and do it. I will try to stay the course.
Which is exactly why in the second part of my post (which you ignored) I said it’s important to encourage going through the spellchecked words one at a time and paying heed.
You make an excellent point. I understand and agree with the parent’s frustration.
But education isn’t a contest between two kids. It’s a job. Your daughters job is to learn.
Did your daughter learn anything from this project? If so then it was a success.
If she didn’t learn anything then I’d be more upset about a school system that wastes time teaching garbage to fill up a day, unstead of something useful.
Was the kid upset she came in 2nd?
If not let it drop.
If she wants to get her a typing program for the computer and see if she takes to it. They have lots of them
I used to train people (adults) and it was basically a car race. The faster you type the quicker your car was. Mistakes were little accidents. Because it was like a game, everyone like it and learned from it.
I don’t mean to be a drag, but I never spelled anything wrong in grade school, pretty much ever (was really good at spelling), and computers didn’t come into wide use till I was in middle school. I also understood complete, correct sentences and pointed arguments in third grade, even though we hadn’t been taught “past participles” and such yet. I did work beyond the supposed scope of my years without any help from my parents. I’m not trying to brag, just saying it’s not impossible, and assumptions are potentially inaccurate. If anyone should be able to tell whether the parents helped, it’d be the teacher, who’s had a chance to observe the student’s in-class work. I think it would be the teacher’s responsibility to bring it up somehow with that student’s parents if she was suspicious of cheating. I can’t imagine how, though.
When my older kids were in a private school, the second-graders, of which my son was one, had an assignment that encompassed geography, math, etc. It was to pick a country, and then to bring in an article of clothing from that country, a food dish from that country to share with the class, currency from that country…and a few more things. I mean, WTF? How is a second-grader going to have access to all that? Oh yeah, there was also a report due, a written report, along with an oral report to the class. It was supposed to include the usual things you can find in an encyclopedia. But all the rest? Forget it.
Fortunately my kid got Mexico. He wore a sombrero, which we had, a serape, which I bought (lots of Mexican markets here in Denver), and took in Mexican wedding cookies, which may or may not be authentic. I made them, but I made him help, a lot.
But really, if you don’t want a second-grader’s parents doing the homework, for the love of mike assign something second-graders can actually do.
Having seen a lot of essays written by third graders in their own handwriting, it strikes me as entirely within the realm of possibility that a third grader could have a correctly spelled, well thought out essay. I’ve seen plenty of them. (Of course, I’ve also seen essays from third graders that barely resemble English, too.) Parents can do their kids’ homework, but so far they haven’t figured out how to write the essays on their standardized tests which is what I’m basing their writing ability on, so I’d give the kiddo in the OP the benefit of a doubt.
My kid comes to me from time to time asking me to proof-read his essays. He’s done this since essay writing started in 3rd or 4th grade. He is in 7th now. I mark his paper up just like I was the teacher and he is responsible for making the corrections. I will do this for him as many times as he asks until he is satisfied with it. I will also offer suggestions for clarity of thought and sentence structure. I see nothing wrong with this as he is learning how to write a proper essay.
Yes, there is a fine line sometimes, between doing your kid’s homework for them and engaging in the appropriate amount of parental help.
It helps to remember that they’re teaching much different things these days than they did 30 years ago when I was in second grade. For writing assignments, my daughter is learning how to do an outline, write a draft, and revise it, as well as learning about the appropriate elements of writing and the reading comprehension skills that go hand in hand with that. I think I started learning these things in seventh grade or something!
My first S.A. (my title - she told us to write an S.A. and I assumed that those letters stood for something) was in 5th grade. My kids did PowerPoint starting in Kindergarten.
Yes!
90% of writing is rewriting. Writing an essay from scratch for a kid is cheating. Pointing out problems with an essay and guiding a kid to fix them is not. I wonder if the OP considers the use of an editor by an established writer cheating also?
When I was in school, almost 50 years ago, the feedback loop between me making a spelling error and seeing that I made it was rather long - days at least. Now it is seconds, and, assuming that the kid actually looks at the list of suggested corrections, is much more effective. Anyhow, the purpose of homework should be to give a kid extra practice in an area, study concepts not immediately covered in class, or do things, like write essays, which are better done alone with some time. The grades should be for feedback - what counts is after the kid is done does he or she know the material.
Anyone who has ever edited a paper that is a mess (some papers I get are a lot worse than anything my kids write nowadays) knows that it is tough. I’d rather a parent do it, and give instant feedback, rather than the teacher maybe doing it. Once the kid has internalized that run-on sentences are bad, and that tenses should match, they can move on to the hard part which is the thought behind the work.
My wife is a writer, and can’t stand crap going out. Both our kids got this type of help, and they have done just fine on their own, including published papers without our help.
Parents should be teachers too. Why give up the opportunity to help in the area a kid needs specific help in? It is unfortunate if some parents are lazy or are cretins, but why hurt the education of some kids because some parents take themselves out of the process? We don’t live in the world of Harrison Bergeron yet.
I didn’t mean to ignore it. I just don’t think it’s very relevant to actual practice. People, including kids, use spellcheck to make their job easier. Telling them to slow down and check the checker goes against that impulse.
Of course, if the object is learning, doing the work is the point. So, it seems to me the most direct approach is to avoid using electronic assistance entirely, at least until you’re able to do the thing without it, and therefore know what you’re doing.
For example,
I find this ridiculous. Kindergarteners don’t need to be doing anything with computers. Sixth-graders don’t need to be doing anything with computers. There’s so much else to learn first, basic stuff! People need their own mental tools before they can do anything important with electronic tools.