Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
Homework Heroes: Grades K-2
Homework is a fact of life for most children, but parents are often confused about their role in this daily drama and concerned about meshing homework with the general dynamics of personal and family life. While homework sometimes causes frustration and arguments for you and your child, it can also be a vehicle for cooperation, a source of pride and accomplishment, and an opportunity for fun and creativity.
Fantasy? No.
From my own experiences as a full-time teacher for over a quarter of a century, a parent of four children, a grandmother of six, a student of learning, a curriculum planner, and a designer and leader of teacher and parenting workshops across this country and abroad, I have some:
complexities to explore and strategies to share
cautions to mention and techniques to offer
issues to highlight and research to quarry
questions to raise and purposes to reinforce
By exploring these combinations you and your child can enhance the positive aspects of this daily reality. You can be Homework Heroes to one another. The second section of this book offers additional nuts and bolts to set you on your way.
If you have read some of my books or articles, or have heard me speak, some of what follows here may sound familiar. Good, that means we are already friends. For new acquaintances, my message is both realistic and optimistic:
Your child can succeed.
You can survive.
There is life after homework.
Consolidation and Confidence
The goal of homework in kindergarten through second grade is to help students consolidate what they have learned in school, and gain confidence in themselves as independent learners. These are twin foundations for later learning, and now is the time to help them grow sturdy.
Students at this age usually think homework is cool, a badge of maturity and honor. In fact, children this age often invent their own if the teacher doesn't assign any!
Ideally, official assignments are simple, fun, and designed with success in mind. After all, if homework is to be an introduction to independence, reliability, and responsibility, adults should help children feel that this yoke is easy and light, so they will wear it willingly in the future.
Here's a truth: children this age move from learning to love to loving to learn. Young children grow through establishing bonds with others. First they love a person, then they broaden that love to include what that person offers or teaches. Affectionate, empathetic teachers magnetize young learners. Children in kindergarten through second grade often, literally, fall in love with their teachers, and then they reach out for the information and knowledge that a teacher offers. In older children, the subject matter is the draw, but at this age it is the person. Your child already loves you. If you, in addition to being center stage in your child's life, approach learning with joy and curiosity, you will soon find your child embracing learning in the same way.
Copyright © 2002 by Anaxos, Inc.
Introduction copyright © 2002 by Priscilla L. Vail, M.A.T.