It was presented as a self-evaluation in conjunction with a parental evaluation. I was a little surprised by the evaluation. Was it meant to spark conversation between parent/ child, was it meant to bring light to any issues a child is having with homework. I mean, shouldn't that be clear by this point? But, the most eye opening part of the evaluation was not anything my daughter wrote, nor her response to my responses. The surprise was a question regarding her respect of the allotted time to complete homework. Why would I give my daughter a time limit on practicing addition, on reading a book, on spelling new words. Really, we go until she is done, mentally done.
Some days she doesn't want to stop. She will spend her 35 minutes doing her review, which is laid out by the professor. After this, I always ask her if she wants more. Some days she chooses to read on her own, some days she takes the ipad and does a spelling test, some days she decides on math practice on the computer. Math is her favorite because we use khanacademy.org which allows her to progress at her own pace. Most days though, she joins her brother and sister playing, because she is a kid!
In my opinion, if Chloe is distracted because Rafael and Emelia have created the best game ever in dino land with rainbow rice, well she sure as heck is not going to focus on her phonetics while she reads the 10 sentences in front of her.
We do what we can, sure I push some nights, but I know where her difficulties lie and I know what she enjoys working on because it comes easy to her. Chloe struggles with spelling. Lucky for her, Auntie Aimee shared a fun app where you create your own spelling test with recorded prompts. The child listens to the word and goes through the test in practice mode, with smiley hints, or in test mode for a mark at the end. It's been very helpful, check out Super Speller - it's free and you can create the test in the language of your choice!
We work to ensure there is not a battle every night. There shouldn't be, she has spent the whole day in school, at a desk, under flourescent lights..... learning! She has her ways of clearly, although non verbally, telling me when she is drained and not learning anymore. I try to compromise the best I can because I know next year, when her little sister begins grade 1, my patients towards homework will be tested even more!
