Homework 2: Check it or correct it?

I corrected, but made what I believe now were mistakes as a mom dealing with homework. I probably made my kids hate homework - because if they misspelled a word, I wanted to erase their previous mis-perception by getting them to write it five times. It might seem like a punishment, but it was intended to replace their incorrect conditioning.

This practice was also ignorantly based on my learning style with spelling - seeing and re-writing several times helped ME - while an explanation or alternative method may have been better for them.

I still think (and this has been borne out as meaningful by research) that performing homework incorrectly without immediate feedback does cement the incorrect method in the mind of the student.

Concerning your desire to communicate to Mo's teacher re his progress pre-intervention, you might jot down which ones Mo missed before your help.

I'd like to see that research because I'm not sure I believe that mistakes require immediate correction for learning to happen. (Okay, I believe it when training dogs but otherwise not so much.)

Like FreeDuck, I don't consider spelling lists homework -- that's studying.

I'm talking more about things like reading a story and being asked what it was most about. For example:

This story was mostly about:
Life on a farm.
Shearing sheep.
Things made of wool.

Or, put these things in alphebetical order:
cue, cute, cut, core, come

It seems to me that revisiting the error would have more impact than immediate correction.

I can admit that I could very well be wrong but I'm a big believer in the value of mistakes.

I think either way is probably fine as long as the kids are ok with it and have an opportunity to see and correct their own mistakes. Mine were just really sensitive about being corrected by me.

The scary thing is finding out when they're in their twenties, that they were crushed by correction...and remembering being so exacting about it so many years ago...

Alfie. God, did I engage in many profanity-laced conversations about Alfie's teaching philosophy - but I agreed with most of what he says here. It's long. The reference #9 at the bottom of the page follows our topic about reinforcing incorrect information - mostly in math.
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/practice.htm
An excerpt:

An eighth-grade English teacher in southern California arrived at the same conclusion:

I very rarely give my students any kind of homework. I do not believe in homework, especially in a Language Arts class. Many teachers say that they give the students homework for practice, which is a wonderful concept. However, does every student in the class need the exact same amount of practice? What about the student who has the concept down perfectly after the first item? Why does she have to do the other thirty-nine items? How about the student who practices all forty problems wrong? What good did the homework assignment do her? I want my students to do their learning in my presence, so I can immediately correct them, or take them in a different direction, or push them further, or learn from them.

****************
Looking for research on reinforcing incorrect learning...if you still don't think it's damaging to learning.

I didn't say I reinforced incorrect learning. Where did that come from?

I let him do his homework. Sometimes he makes mistakes. I don't say "good job, you got every one of them right", I say "did you finish?".

When he performs problems wrong alone - that act is reinforcement of incorrect processes. You don't have to commend him for it ...

I just said that I don't commend him for it.

I ask "Did you finish it?"

I mean, isn't that what his teacher is for? Isn't that her job? How can she do that if she doesn't know what he's doing wrong?

It sounds like you guys are both kind of saying the same the same thing: learning/reinforcing of correct processes should happen in the classroom, not at home. Or at least, you can't expect parents to be natural teachers, though undoubtedly some are.

Yeah. This is why teachers are trending toward no homework.

Sorry we aren't quite communicating effectively, B. Working the problem incorrectly is considered reinforcement of incorrect processes.

As I said before, I don't think I ever had help with homework. It's interesting for me to read about what happens when parents do help, for better or worse, and the intricacies of that. So, following the thread.

Boomer, I love that you check to see that homework is done. That's the most important thing. I like the idea of telling Mo which problems he got wrong to see if he can fix them. Have him review any notes he may have taken or look in his textbook if he has one. If the teacher is truly not checking the homework carefully this is especially important.

If you do do that, maybe you can put a pen mark next to the problems he got wrong and were redone. This way if the teacher is checking the homework, she can see where he was getting stuck.

Homework is a fraction of the work they do in school, true. But, it's important for reinforcing skills. When they sit in a quiet place and work through problems on their own, they test whether they really got the concept or not. The only other times this happens, really, is during tests (when it's too late if they don't get it).

Complete agreement.

All that being said, homework, at least the worksheet type, should be a tool that reinforces in-school learning. Worksheets should reflect what was TAUGHT in school that day. They should not be something the students haven't recently learned.

Exactly, but if the student didn't get it that day - the worksheet can be very damaging.

No need to apologize =)
Thats what tests are for =)

I think parents should teach the children how to do it and tell then if they are right or wrong afteryards. The one thing they shouldnt do is do it for the child, as even if the child watches, it still may not get it. Everything looks easy then someone else is doing it =)

This mostly applies to problem-solving disciplines such as math though. If you dont know history, no amount of effort will make history pop in your head, so you might just go ahead and tell the child already, albeit in this case the child can (and maybe should) just read the book.

My math teacher (whom liked to double as a life-in-general teacher) once said that no matter how much parents try, they always fail in some aspect. I think thats true. I think it even goes as far as being a back and forth effect between generations in some cases: If you think your parents were too strict, you may end up being too lenient with your own kids, who in turn may end up being too strict with their own kids as they though you were too lenient, and on it goes... =)

I agree with this teacher, because I always was one of the kids who learned in the first and then had to grind on thirty-nine =)

And I hate repetition. HATE.

I think homework shouldnt be mandatory. Children shouldnt be forced to learn, they should understand they have to. And, while its easy to figure out if a child hasnt learned something, I think only the child can exactly the point in which the exercise stops being an experience of learning and starts being a boring and useless grind over something the child already knows.

Indeed. In my country, most things we learn in school are so useless than everyone has it forgotten at most one year later, so parents end up being very inadequate teachers =)

I found interesting how much people here spoke about spelling classes. My mother language is portuguese, and in portuguese the way a word is supposed to be pronounced is almost always obvious from the letters that compose it. Then learning english, my greatest difficulty has always been the pronunciation of words, which seens to have no relation whatsoever to the individual sounds of the letters. I always though it was just because it is a second language and that people who were raised speaking english probaly didnt have such a problem, but if there is actually homework about it, then it seens I was wrong =)

I had very little help with homework as well, with "very little" meaning that it stopped early, I dont remember exactly then but probaly then I was around 7 or 8 years old. Partly because I never really needed help on school, partly because my father works a lot while my mother's education was quite limited.

I don 't do either one,
but as long as he has a clear UNDERSTANDING of the subject matter, that 's all that counts.
He 's gonna be tested anyway.

When I was a kid, if my mother was around when I was doing my homework,
I sure did not hesitate to ask a question qua history or geografy.

I shoud have asked Y thay don 't teach fonetic spelling.




David

My daughters' school will also send tests home and we (parents) need to sign them. In general my girls do pretty well, but I always like to go over what they missed and explain what they did wrong and what they can do to make improvements even if it is just "one wrong".

I do try to explain, they did excellent, I just want to make sure they understand so they can get it correct next time. I can see about the sensitive thing about correcting their mistakes, my youngest is especially sensitive about this - so I really try to be clear, they did well and it is ok to make the mistake, but to help them learn from it.

Your child is so fortunate that you are so in tune with her, and how she feels.

Ha, ha -you would laugh if you knew her. I am fortunate - she doesn't hestitate to let me know how she feels - she is extremely open with her feelings.

There is NO doubting what she thinks/feels!