Challenge #3: Maintain an Effective Homework Routine

Thanks Adam for creating this challenge!

In fact, I was inspired by your recent post on homework routine to establish my own. (Given my daughter's age, I then went back to your first homework routine post to gather ideas.)

She asked to learn to read and wants to learn the letters of the alphabet.

So we started a week ago, after setting up a little writing desk with a desk lamp and a pencil holder for her in her bedroom. (I also ordered some activity books from the German branch of Usborne, with letters and numbers.) The idea is to have her work on letters or numbers a little bit every night before the bedtime story.

So far, she's asking for it, but next week my regular training starts again three nights a week, so we'll have to wait till then to see what kind of work rhythm we can establish on those nights. Maybe "homework" before I leave, and bedtime stories after I come back? Before the summer break (of training, I mean) it was one story before I left and two after I got back.

So my immediate goal is to figure out a regular routine that works. I'll report back a month from now.

My oldest just started Kindergarten last week, and tonight we begin her first school assignment! I think I will need to work some French into the routine as well... I'll have to check out those blog articles for inspiration.
Great idea!

Thanks Mayken! I also posted a site to the French resources page which has free printable worksheets for each grade level.

We did the first one last night (even though she didn't have any "real" homework) and she loved it! On a side note, I am finding the structure that a school day brings makes it easier to get our minority-language reading time in!

I had printed out some German worksheets last night, and when I said "it's a bit like being in big school", my daughter was thrilled.

Mayken, clever thinking! Keep at it!

Tatyana, happy settling in! Once life calms down, it will naturally be easier to regain some rhythm for your homework routine. But it's good that your eye is on this already (your daughter's eye, too! ) and you're working toward a suitable solution.

Best of luck! Let us know how it goes!

P.S. I don't think I mentioned this before, but my mother's given name is Mila, like your younger daughter (though she's always used her middle name more, Katrine).

Mayken, thanks for your update. It sounds to me like you're doing well. The barometer for success all depends on our individual circumstances and aims. For example, it may not be possible for you to maintain the routine each day, but if you establish a consistent rhythm of several days a week, this will no doubt contribute quite positively to your daughter's language and literacy development. And by laying a foundation for a sustainable homework routine, you'll be positioning both you and your daughter to carry on with this routine throughout childhood. (And, as your lives evolve, it may eventually be possible to pursue it daily.)

The reason, of course, that I stress a daily homework routine is that daily habits tend to stick better and will generally produce more progress over time.

As for giving specific "assignments" or offering more choice, both approaches have their uses and merits. At this point, it's generally most practical for me to assign my kids their work each day, but I also recognize the value of choice in eliciting motivation and I do try to add this to the equation when I can. For younger kids, like yours, and especially when parents are just getting a homework routine going, choice can be an important tool in fueling the child's interest and firmly fixing the routine.

Mayken, your homework routine is off to a promising start! Keep at it!

I guess I'll update too, even though I feel like I'm failing. The upside is that for the past month we have a semi-consistent reading routine. Natalie reads half a page of a book for which she gets a sticker and her usual bedtime reading from me. It's good that we finally established a reading routine. None of the children's books motivated her. The poems were too easy or over her head, the simple children's stories simply not interesting. She picked a book out herself at the library - Moomin Trolls. it's a fantastic book that I loved as a child but it's not meant for a 5 year old to read independently. It has the size and font that is found in a regular adult book. But she loves it and doesn't care that we're on page 19 after a whole month. So in that at least a routine has been established.

On the other hand the writing is a complete and total loss. She hates writing anything that she's not 100% sure on, in both languages. She is currently on a "I love mom" card kick and makes those over and over again, but she really refuses to write anything original. Even letter workbooks she hates. I see other kids her age start to attempt writing on their own with their own totally funny, totally logical mistakes, like "reele" for "really". Not my daughter. Cat, hat, sat, and, the, mama. That's the extent of what she writes on her own. So if anyone has any idea for fun activities to encourage writing, I'm all ears.

I have waited to post on this because I have been working the last month or so to integrate this into our lives and now I am ready to report out.

L is much too young for homework (he just turned 2 today!), BUT I thought it's never to early to dedicate a little extra time. So we have changed our bedtime routine. We do a bath, then reading time all together which means one ML book with Dad and one ml book with mom. Then L and I retreat to his room to do "homework." I figure it's good to call it that so he is used to it later. All we really do is sit in the rocking chair and read another short book or two in ml, but it is more interactive this time and he is expected to "help" me with repetition, answering questions, etc. then we do prayers and singing, just like always. It isn't a lot of extra time, about 10 minutes, but I think he sees it as time that he is able to put off bed and get a little extra mom attention. And I like that we are alone because there is less distraction and no one around who speaks ML. (Plus, I am more of a night person, so this has been more successful than my breakfast reading routine because I always run late in the mornings!)

I would say we are now doing this short routine 6 or 7 times per week, almost every night. AND I think it may have a lot too do with L's increasing usage of ml. He is getting more confident. I plan on recording our session at least once a month so I can track progress.

Lena

On my side, establishing a homework routine has been a failure so far. Part of the problem is the time management. We already have very little time in the evenings, and our normal routine involves two or three stories in ml from me, followed by one story in ML from Dad. When I'm reading, our daughter almost never sits beside me to look into the book, she asks me to show her the picture before I turn the page (and complains if I forget). Most of the time she'll either sit at her table and draw or keep moving (sometimes jumping around on her bed, making me ask her to stop several times) while I read.

We do have a bunch of activity books, some with letters and numbers, some with a mixture of activities with her favourite storybook character, but she just doesn't focus on these things for longer than a minute. She wants to see all the activities in the book but not work on one long enough to finish. (These books are for her age group, so the tasks aren't very long or complex.)

Another part of the problem is that I get impatient. I want her to pay attention to the story. She keeps telling me that she listens, and when I change the story and put in something that doesn't belong, she'll notice at once, so I know that she does listen. But to me it always seems that she's not really with me but doing something else.

And she can focus, sometimes she'll be working away at her desk and then show us the "book" of several pages she made or stuff like that, that she came up with by herself.

But anything resembling a task given to her? Nope.

And a third part of the problem is that I have swim practice three nights a week and am rushed on those nights - she gets a story before I leave and another one when I come back, but by then it's half past nine and she gets all excited that I'm back when she should calm down to go to sleep.

Yes, I've done the easy thing and abandoned the homework routine, telling myself that we can try again "later". Only I'm afraid that later is going to be too late or never. I admit I'm a bit discouraged, and I blame myself because I don't take the time to do this properly. But I don't know where I'm going wrong and how I could change that (other than changing my practice times, which unfortunately is not an option).