Homework

[awonghk05]

Hi

My son who will be 4 years next month refuses to sit in a place for atleast 5 minutes continously to do his homework. He sits for 2-3 minutes and walks aorund the place and very difficult to get him back.

Helpful if someone could let me know of some hints to improve his span to sit continuosly.

regards

[carang]

he's four!!!!!!!!!! they're supposed to be moving around! homework for a four year old is insane!!!(sorry, i used to be a private tutor and this kind of thing drove me crazy!)

that said, there's nothing wrong with getting him to sit down...try colouring, playing games, reading... if he can sit for these things it's because they're interesting and fun... homework is not....

[awonghk05]

Thank you so much carang, on your reply.

We have put him to kumon and this is the one that iam referring to that he just sits with for hours.

Cheers

[carang]

maybe he's too young for it...like i said, try reading to him, colouring, cooking, art and crafts, you can teach him while doing these things... children learn through doing best...

[yaffle]

Take him out of that school. No four yaer old should have homework. In fact there is a fair amount of research now saying that children of any age gain little or no benefit from homework, and it is in fact detrimental to their health.

[jane01]

I agree with the above posters, 4 year olds are not built to sit still ! As for homework, I'm shocked ! My mum is a primary school teacher in Australia and she has always told me:

* young children learn through play - helping you with the washing, going for a walk in the park, baking cakes with you, generally just spending time with their parents, relatives and friends (and helpers I suppose in Hong Kong)
* ideally a child should learn to love learning. That just won't happen with tutoring and homework at 4 years old.
* they will learn maths, english/chinese, etc at school for a long time. Before school, just let them be children and enjoy their childhood. Don't rush it before they are emotionally ready.

I will ask mum about current guidelines, but for what it's worth, I didn't have homework until high school (age 12/13) and I managed to get a Masters degree.

Thanks for the warning about Kumon - it will be the last place my daughter goes near !

[Valencia]

Basically, I agree with the above posters, especially with Jane01"A child should learn to love learning." However, we are a Chinese family and my daughter is going to a local school. She has to struggle in order to get to a good primary school, and the children are so competitive out there.

Kumon used to be a good idea. It originated in Japan, just another kind of home tutoring, teaching students of different levels at one time. The better students are going way ahead of their school's levels whereas the poor ones are trying their best to hang on. This is what I learnt from my former student. Anyway, I think Kumon is for primary students and onwards, not for kindergarten children!

We Asians have a life-long tradition of pushing children academically, and the educational system of Hong Kong sucks! Since 1997, they have been doing experiments, changing from English stream to Chinese, and back to English again, trying this and that all to no avail. That's why more and more locals are going to international schools.

Lastly, I would like to share my daughter's experience with you all. She has had no playgroup experience and stays home a lot. She has had 3 exams in K1, and she has to start writing English and Chinese characters in the second semester. She failed all subjects in the mid-term exam and was recommended to repeat K1 because her teacher said she would have problems in writing in K2, especially the Chinese characters. (You may think it's insane, me too ). I managed to get her through in the final exam and she passed all subjects, most with 70 and 80 marks. Her exam papers looked pretty difficult to me. She still hated writing throughout her 22 days of summer holiday and I had to bribe her with snacks and candies. Added to this is her phonological problems.

However, since mid August when she started K2 changing to full day session, I have noticed the drastic changes. She started to pronounce the consonants m and b correctly, since her new teacher has been working with her. She used to hate full day sessions the first two weeks, but now when she got home she took a pencil and practised writing. She is holding her pencil correctly now. She could count to 18 ( with a picture) yesterday. My conclusion: she has an experienced and patient teacher this year, lucky me and my daughter. I thanked her a lot. :lovedface

[jane01]

Valencia - exams in Kindergarten ! I knew that local schools pushed their students, but didn't realise it was to that extent. Your poor daughter. Glad to hear that she now enjoys it.