Homework has been a part of us for years. Every evening after school, night after the next, year after year. We have homework from teachers and parents who hope that the homework will make us better academically. But what is the work of homework? What purpose does it serve?
Any student will say that homework doesn’t help. To them, homework is just stressful, and it makes them tired. Homework makes many students hate school in books like The homework myth, the end of homework, and the case against homework. They try and come up with a case against homework. The fact that homework gives student unnecessary pressure and make the children not spend time with family at home, homework becomes not effective. Students will not be good learners and thinkers.
What relationship is there between academic excellence and homework?
The research is done on hundreds of studies on homework by researchers. It has shown that conclusions remain a matter of debate.
When is it too much?
Children do not complain about anything. The rise of homework is evident. Over the years, the amount of homework that children get given has doubled. Due to the pressure that administrators of the schools have to ensure better performances from the students on tests. Some students have homework that takes hours to complete. How can you establish if the amount of homework your child is doing is the right amount? There is a norm that’s accepted, the 10 minutes per each grade rule.
The rule applies that as the grade advances, they add 10 minutes more on the homework. If the second graders are doing 20 minutes of homework, the third graders will be doing 30 minutes.
But this projection of the time sometimes doesn’t work. You find instead of the child spending thirty minutes doing their homework, and they spend hours. It is probably because they have other distractions.
Less can be more.
If your child’s dedicated to doing their homework and sometimes spends a lot of time on it, it is good to intervene to ensure that she is getting enough rest apart from homework. Studies show that better body and brain development is linked with enough rest or sleep.
For very young children, elementary age, homework doesn’t have any advantages. But as they grow, there is a relationship between their achievements and homework in middle school if their assignments are one to two hours every night. If they work for more than two hours, nothing improves. The optimal time for high schoolers is two hours. If you have given them more, you won’t get any achievements.
Not all homework is the same
As we have seen for middle school and high school, homework impacts the child’s grades. Studies show that they have much to gain in their academics for high school and middle schoolers when they do their homework. Students who do their homework outperformed nearly 70% of the classes that do not have homework. However, the effectiveness of this was half when it came to middle school. At the same time, there was no evidence of any relationship between achievement and homework for elementary school.
Conclusion
Homework, despite all studies, remains a history. Until there is a conclusive study on how homework affects children’s productivity at different stages of their development, the parents will have to rely on their best judgment on homework.