A few years ago, I read The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning by Kralovec and Buell. The authors build a well-presented case against homework for children younger than high-school age based upon their claims that there is little evidence that homework for younger children has any long or short term benefit.
The authors observe that homework is disruptive to family dynamics because it is an ongoing source of conflict between parents and their children. They also observe that the primary reason schools assign homework to younger children is because parents demand it. Both of these observations are consistent with my experience both within my own family and my observations of the families of my child's peers.
On the other hand, I have no way of verifying or denying the author's claims about homework studies failing to demonstrate long term benefits from homework.
Overall, I am glad I read it because it gave me some perspective on the issue. My son still is responsible for doing his homework, and we as parents clearly communicate this to him. Anyway, if you're parenting, I'd say it's perhaps worth checking out.
As an aside, I strongly recommend Juliet Schor's Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture about the way corporations have come to market to children - and it's probably only gotten worse with them having online lives.
The authors observe that homework is disruptive to family dynamics because it is an ongoing source of conflict between parents and their children. They also observe that the primary reason schools assign homework to younger children is because parents demand it. Both of these observations are consistent with my experience both within my own family and my observations of the families of my child's peers.
On the other hand, I have no way of verifying or denying the author's claims about homework studies failing to demonstrate long term benefits from homework.
Overall, I am glad I read it because it gave me some perspective on the issue. My son still is responsible for doing his homework, and we as parents clearly communicate this to him. Anyway, if you're parenting, I'd say it's perhaps worth checking out.
As an aside, I strongly recommend Juliet Schor's Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture about the way corporations have come to market to children - and it's probably only gotten worse with them having online lives.
End of Homework: http://www.amazon.com/The-End-Homework-Disrupts-Overburdens/...
Born to Buy: http://www.amazon.com/Born-Buy-Commercialized-Consumer-Cultu...