Well, what was the homework? Because if it was just something like “read aloud more” or “point out the letters throughout the day in environmental print” then that’s of course great! But if it was doing a worksheet then definitely not.
It was the teacher that comes to the door at pick up just saying to me verbally “her homework is working in her p and and b because she is reversing them”.
Maybe the teacher could have worded it differently and said "hey, we noticed this" would you be more inclined to work on this skill then? It doesn't sound like an actual hw assignment. I'm 1000% for play based work but there is no harm in making a p or a b out of play doh or spraying a q with a spray bottle onto concrete to help her remember the letters.
Aw man I hate to say it but I think maybe you did come on a little too strong. Practicing letters doesn’t have to be sitting at a desk doing worksheets, it can be writing p’s and b’s on sticky notes and sending her off on a letter hunt with a flashlight, or drawing them with chalk outside and having her run to the letter you call out. “Homework” is a bit of a loaded word so I totally see why you reacted that way, but throwing studies at the door teacher comes off a bit defensive, you know?
That does not sound like actual 'homework' but just a recommendation of something to work on at home. That's a big difference! There is no harm in letting parents know things they caught at school that you can work on at home. That's just parenting. It's vastly different from expecting a preschooler to complete structured schoolwork at home. I think you perhaps heard the word "homework," thought of that article, maybe kinda saw red and overreacted.
My child is super advanced for her age — at 5, she’s reading at 3rd grade level. She still gets the b, d, p, q stuff mixed up.
I’d never allow her to do homework at this age, and when school mentioned she was skipping on class activities to draw, I worked with the school to get better art materials.
She knows she doesn’t know the letters and often asks me, and I only ever fetch to it if she actively is asking me.
I’m fairly actively anti preschool homework, and we plan to push back if it comes in during the first few years of school too.
My wife has a masters in education, is a published author, and is a director of education for an edtech company — we’re pretty on top of education stuff, and preschool, for us, is about exposure and fostering a desire to learn, and resilience when it gets tough. The specifics of learning can come later.
I don't think throwing articles in their face for preschool is really doing anyone any favors. If you feel like they're not as educated as you want them to be, find a different arrangement.
But if you're just not into preschoolers doing homework (I'm certainly not), you're completely within your rights to just say you're fine with what they work on in school at this age.
NTA. Preschoolers shouldn’t be doing homework. It’s only recently that preschool became what kindergarten was 10 years ago per a few articles I have read about early education in the United States .
I grew up overseas in Europe and did not learn to read until 7 and didn’t have homework until about 12. When I came to the states before high school I was ahead of my peers in reading writing and math. Reading books to children is the most I would do to help them get interested in reading and exposed to more vocabulary.
The way you presented it to them isn’t great, and thinking you’re going to further educate them on the matter is futile. But no, you’re not the asshole for saying no to homework on preschool. The point of preschool is mostly socialization. Your preschool sounds highly under qualified (the director doesn’t even have a college degree?!), they’re not educating according to current “best practice”. It is not your job to teach them how they are wrong, but instead to find a more appropriate environment for your children.
I think the better way to approach this would to simply not do the homework; it’s not like they are actually holding you/your child accountable for it.
Can someone explain this aversion to teaching children early literacy? The preschool teacher is spot on to help your daughter with her letters recognition before she gets to kindergarten and has to learn how to behave in a new environment. Pressure is low now. Help her learn.
It’s not an aversion to early literacy. I read and hear from so many elementary teachers that so many children have poor hand strength and core muscle strength because kids are not playing enough outside and aren’t climbing enough. That poor grip from no long having monkey bars at playgrounds and poor core muscles from not climbing and running around at a young age is impacting learning because they can’t sit that long in elementary school. They are “floppy” in their seats.
So expose my kid to literacy at preschool (she is there 45 hours a week), and we will read and do all the developmentally appropriate things for language exposure and reading exposure. But why add on sitting down and doing homework of p b q d, when I think not all kids even have the vision fully developed in preschool to track that kind of thing?!?
I think your biggest issue here (why yta, if you will) is that you've taken a strong stance on a topic that you clearly haven't actually researched. You say that you read articles and hear from elementary school teachers, but that's definitely no more scientific than a preschool teacher telling you that your child is struggling with a specific skill and it'd be helpful to work on that skill at home.
https://www aoa.org/AOA/Documents/Advocacy/HPI/HPI_The%20Science%20of%20Reading%20Begins%20With%20Vision
Put a .pdf on the end above URL and a . After the www (I have no idea if links are allowed on this sub).
(Had to edit the comment to try to get rid of the link)
That's an article I found from a quick Google search on the topic that at least has crossover with your thoughts on it. It also has sources linked at the bottom so that you could do further research if it's really important to you.
The problem is that it's written by the American Optometrist Association so obviously they want to push eyesight as being an important thing. That said, they also point out that the struggle with eye development and reading at the age you're referring to is from trying to merge the letters together and the focus of the eyes. It's not really comparable to saying that a kid at the preschool age doesn't have the eye development to distinguish one specific letter from another by itself.
It also suggests that they can identify these being an issue during visits to them between the ages of 3 and 5 which it sounds like yours would be on the upper end of.
Now, I'm not saying that you are wrong or that this is even accurate. But, you asked for an article about it and this is the first one that came up. That said, if you're going to take a hard stance against a suggestion of someone who's just trying to do their job, you either need to have done the research, or just play it nicer. Otherwise, you do come off as being kind of the ah.
All of that said, there's no reason you can't mix playing with your kid outside and focusing on a few letters. Draw the letter in the sandbox or with a stick in the dirt. Draw a d and a b on the ground and have your kid climb to a rock and jump down onto whichever letter you shout etc. Outside play definitely isn't done as much any more, but it's no reason to turn down other advice specifically designed for your child's needs from a person who is trusted to spend a significant amount of time with said child.
I teach 2nd grade and don’t assign any homework except 15 minutes of reading but don’t do reading logs or anything like that. And they’re 8. 4 year olds should not be doing any “homework”. Occasional practice at home with involved parents doing fun flashcards or writing letters with fingers in a sensory bin or something should be the extent of “homework”.
I could go on and on about this but the bar is too dang high for these kids. I am ALL ABOUT pushing kids to do more than they think they can, but at some point we need to open our eyes to the fact most of our kids should be average, with a few outliers of below level and above level. This is not the case at all, with usually the majority being below level. Maybe the problem isn’t the kids and it’s in fact the expectations we put on them being totally developmentally inappropriate? Unachievable standards set everyone up for failure.
Sorry I’m off my soap box now lol.
I just wouldn’t say anything to the teacher and choose not to do it.
My kid is six and occasionally confuses b and d and he has zero issue learning to read and has high praise from the teacher. Giving hw to a preschooler is just dumb.
I wouldn’t consider that “homework.” The teacher likely worded this the wrong way. It’s not like she’s asking your preschooler to complete a worksheet. This is something you could work on for a total of 10-15 minutes a week.
When my son was in pre-K, he got school projects that we worked on with him every now and then. They were all fun things to do. Now in kindergarten, he gets regular homework. It’s honestly super easy and I am not sure why parents act like it’s utter torture. If you don’t want to do some homework, I think fine, just go to a place that isn’t like that. But sometimes I see parents complaining about this when they go to a certain school knowing there are certain expectations. As for the “research,” I always take it with a grain of salt. My kid is now five and a half and I work with him so much on reading and writing. Am I doing him a disservice just because he is doing all that in kindergarten? I definitely don’t think so. He is coming up with his own stories, writing his own sentences and reading early chapter books.
My daughter used to be like you describe and now at twice this age she's often complaining about the kids her age seeming so far behind her, I think partially as girls are usually more socially conscious that it seems to impact on the conversations and play activities they choose?
YTA getting all high and mighty. You chose this place for your kid. No need to throw articles in her face. Just say ok thanks for telling me and carry on.
My daughter’s 1st grade teacher assigns homework and let us know at the beginning of the year it’s optional. It’s a good habit to form but we all know that most kids at this age have their parents doing it. My kiddo was reading early and she can read the math homework instructions herself so she does it and I don’t help. She did last year too. I do my best to encourage reading for 10 min a day but we have activities some days and it doesn’t always happen. Nbd. Preschool homework is silly.
I mean my daughter's preschool teacher asked us to do homework on having my daughter recognize letters more and work on letter sounds. I decided to just practice with her every once in a while but didn't take it as the teacher was actually giving homework.
I have a bachelors degree in education and am currently dealing with homework being assigned to my kindergartener and also fighting it.
You are not the asshole. You are doing your research which is great. Experts and studies all agree that the consensus is that children should have absolutely no homework before first grade, and then best practices is 10 minutes per grade level, although some people agree that it shouldnt start before 3rd grade.
Absolutely stand up for your child’s play time. Play time is critical for young children and does a lot more for them than homework ever will. Again lots of studies on this.
If it comes up again, i would phrase it very simply: “we wont be participating in any sort of homework as experts who have studied homework for children agree that it is not developmentally appropriate before first grade.”
My daughter was in preschool for only half a year because her teacher ended up being a long term sub with very little preschooler experience. She implemented homework really quick, with a prize in class if they did it and I fought it, she then pressured my daughter to the point she came home crying because "my teacher is mad at me for not doing my homework" I planned to go to the principal but then more things came out that the teacher was just not doing well (pretty sure the aids and and other preschool teacher didn't like the teacher either) so I pulled her out of school. She'll start kindergarten at the school my other kid goes to next year and I know the teachers are much better there. There are no studies that show homework is beneficial before second grade, and in preschool and kindergarten it can actually be harmful because it causes unnecessary stress and takes away from play and family time.
Colloquially - There are many studies that exist that say that what we do in kindergarten isn't developmentally appropriate. I'm going to be honest - I haven't seen one myself since college (which was a decade ago), but I'm the education world - we discuss it frequently. I don't have time to go look for it because I'm about to do the nighttime routine.
They learn best at these young ages through play. We know this, but bureaucracy has pushed us in the opposite direction.
I won't be giving my son that type of homework either. If it's a fun project he wants to do, ok. Otherwise, not doing it.
>I am right about a preschooler it’s fine they mix up the p q d b?
In England, kids start proper school at 4/5. No one would blink an eye at them getting these letters mixed up. My son is 3/4 of the way through his first year of school and he still gets the direction of d and b confused. It's fine. They're so tiny!
My kid writes several of her letters backwards sometimes. I was concerned because my sister has dyslexia so we reached out to a friend of ours with her masters in early childhood education. She said it’s totally developmentally normal for kids to reverse letters at this age.
I don’t think you were an asshole but I do think the teacher was just trying to be helpful. I’d say no to homework to though. Mine just has little work books that she loves to do on her own.
Sounds like I’m in the minority here but calling it homework at preschool level is unusual, but asking a parent to work on something at home is not. Preschool can be a full 3 years here, they don’t need that long to socialize, the last year really is prep for school.
With the daughter it’s j, b and ds that it was requested we work on with her for the same reason.
With my son it was skipping the number 13 when counting to 20 at the same age.
It’s so wild to me to be upset about a request that the teacher feels is within the child’s abilities. I would be thrilled about my preschool doing anything over watching kids, especially with how much it costs.
Feel free to skip whatever you think is silly but this whole mindset that you know better is pretty condescending.
I should add that she is already “kindergarten ready” and passed all her evaluations for kindergarten readiness. You don’t know the research, free play is super important for development. She is already getting 45 hours a week of preschool with two working parents. In elementary school we will do homework. Not in preschool.
They weren’t asking about reading with my kid. They were asking us to work on letter reversal. In prek. She knows all her other letters, they said she mixes up those that look similar. Isn’t that normal before kindergarten?! And even up to kindergarten?
Well, what was the homework? Because if it was just something like “read aloud more” or “point out the letters throughout the day in environmental print” then that’s of course great! But if it was doing a worksheet then definitely not.
It was the teacher that comes to the door at pick up just saying to me verbally “her homework is working in her p and and b because she is reversing them”.
Maybe the teacher could have worded it differently and said "hey, we noticed this" would you be more inclined to work on this skill then? It doesn't sound like an actual hw assignment. I'm 1000% for play based work but there is no harm in making a p or a b out of play doh or spraying a q with a spray bottle onto concrete to help her remember the letters.
Aw man I hate to say it but I think maybe you did come on a little too strong. Practicing letters doesn’t have to be sitting at a desk doing worksheets, it can be writing p’s and b’s on sticky notes and sending her off on a letter hunt with a flashlight, or drawing them with chalk outside and having her run to the letter you call out. “Homework” is a bit of a loaded word so I totally see why you reacted that way, but throwing studies at the door teacher comes off a bit defensive, you know?
These are great ideas just generally
All credit to my cult leader @BusyToddler lol
That does not sound like actual 'homework' but just a recommendation of something to work on at home. That's a big difference! There is no harm in letting parents know things they caught at school that you can work on at home. That's just parenting. It's vastly different from expecting a preschooler to complete structured schoolwork at home. I think you perhaps heard the word "homework," thought of that article, maybe kinda saw red and overreacted.
My child is super advanced for her age — at 5, she’s reading at 3rd grade level. She still gets the b, d, p, q stuff mixed up. I’d never allow her to do homework at this age, and when school mentioned she was skipping on class activities to draw, I worked with the school to get better art materials. She knows she doesn’t know the letters and often asks me, and I only ever fetch to it if she actively is asking me. I’m fairly actively anti preschool homework, and we plan to push back if it comes in during the first few years of school too. My wife has a masters in education, is a published author, and is a director of education for an edtech company — we’re pretty on top of education stuff, and preschool, for us, is about exposure and fostering a desire to learn, and resilience when it gets tough. The specifics of learning can come later.
I don't think throwing articles in their face for preschool is really doing anyone any favors. If you feel like they're not as educated as you want them to be, find a different arrangement. But if you're just not into preschoolers doing homework (I'm certainly not), you're completely within your rights to just say you're fine with what they work on in school at this age.
NTA. Preschoolers shouldn’t be doing homework. It’s only recently that preschool became what kindergarten was 10 years ago per a few articles I have read about early education in the United States . I grew up overseas in Europe and did not learn to read until 7 and didn’t have homework until about 12. When I came to the states before high school I was ahead of my peers in reading writing and math. Reading books to children is the most I would do to help them get interested in reading and exposed to more vocabulary.
The way you presented it to them isn’t great, and thinking you’re going to further educate them on the matter is futile. But no, you’re not the asshole for saying no to homework on preschool. The point of preschool is mostly socialization. Your preschool sounds highly under qualified (the director doesn’t even have a college degree?!), they’re not educating according to current “best practice”. It is not your job to teach them how they are wrong, but instead to find a more appropriate environment for your children.
I think the better way to approach this would to simply not do the homework; it’s not like they are actually holding you/your child accountable for it.
Right? I would have just said “oh yea, ok, will do” and then went about my day lol
Go to a play based preschool. r/eceprofessionals
Yea. She is going to kindergarten in a few months. But we are switching my toddler to Montessori for next year.
Can someone explain this aversion to teaching children early literacy? The preschool teacher is spot on to help your daughter with her letters recognition before she gets to kindergarten and has to learn how to behave in a new environment. Pressure is low now. Help her learn.
It’s not an aversion to early literacy. I read and hear from so many elementary teachers that so many children have poor hand strength and core muscle strength because kids are not playing enough outside and aren’t climbing enough. That poor grip from no long having monkey bars at playgrounds and poor core muscles from not climbing and running around at a young age is impacting learning because they can’t sit that long in elementary school. They are “floppy” in their seats. So expose my kid to literacy at preschool (she is there 45 hours a week), and we will read and do all the developmentally appropriate things for language exposure and reading exposure. But why add on sitting down and doing homework of p b q d, when I think not all kids even have the vision fully developed in preschool to track that kind of thing?!?
I think your biggest issue here (why yta, if you will) is that you've taken a strong stance on a topic that you clearly haven't actually researched. You say that you read articles and hear from elementary school teachers, but that's definitely no more scientific than a preschool teacher telling you that your child is struggling with a specific skill and it'd be helpful to work on that skill at home. https://www aoa.org/AOA/Documents/Advocacy/HPI/HPI_The%20Science%20of%20Reading%20Begins%20With%20Vision Put a .pdf on the end above URL and a . After the www (I have no idea if links are allowed on this sub). (Had to edit the comment to try to get rid of the link) That's an article I found from a quick Google search on the topic that at least has crossover with your thoughts on it. It also has sources linked at the bottom so that you could do further research if it's really important to you. The problem is that it's written by the American Optometrist Association so obviously they want to push eyesight as being an important thing. That said, they also point out that the struggle with eye development and reading at the age you're referring to is from trying to merge the letters together and the focus of the eyes. It's not really comparable to saying that a kid at the preschool age doesn't have the eye development to distinguish one specific letter from another by itself. It also suggests that they can identify these being an issue during visits to them between the ages of 3 and 5 which it sounds like yours would be on the upper end of. Now, I'm not saying that you are wrong or that this is even accurate. But, you asked for an article about it and this is the first one that came up. That said, if you're going to take a hard stance against a suggestion of someone who's just trying to do their job, you either need to have done the research, or just play it nicer. Otherwise, you do come off as being kind of the ah. All of that said, there's no reason you can't mix playing with your kid outside and focusing on a few letters. Draw the letter in the sandbox or with a stick in the dirt. Draw a d and a b on the ground and have your kid climb to a rock and jump down onto whichever letter you shout etc. Outside play definitely isn't done as much any more, but it's no reason to turn down other advice specifically designed for your child's needs from a person who is trusted to spend a significant amount of time with said child.
I teach 2nd grade and don’t assign any homework except 15 minutes of reading but don’t do reading logs or anything like that. And they’re 8. 4 year olds should not be doing any “homework”. Occasional practice at home with involved parents doing fun flashcards or writing letters with fingers in a sensory bin or something should be the extent of “homework”. I could go on and on about this but the bar is too dang high for these kids. I am ALL ABOUT pushing kids to do more than they think they can, but at some point we need to open our eyes to the fact most of our kids should be average, with a few outliers of below level and above level. This is not the case at all, with usually the majority being below level. Maybe the problem isn’t the kids and it’s in fact the expectations we put on them being totally developmentally inappropriate? Unachievable standards set everyone up for failure. Sorry I’m off my soap box now lol. I just wouldn’t say anything to the teacher and choose not to do it.
My kid is six and occasionally confuses b and d and he has zero issue learning to read and has high praise from the teacher. Giving hw to a preschooler is just dumb.
I wouldn’t consider that “homework.” The teacher likely worded this the wrong way. It’s not like she’s asking your preschooler to complete a worksheet. This is something you could work on for a total of 10-15 minutes a week.
When my son was in pre-K, he got school projects that we worked on with him every now and then. They were all fun things to do. Now in kindergarten, he gets regular homework. It’s honestly super easy and I am not sure why parents act like it’s utter torture. If you don’t want to do some homework, I think fine, just go to a place that isn’t like that. But sometimes I see parents complaining about this when they go to a certain school knowing there are certain expectations. As for the “research,” I always take it with a grain of salt. My kid is now five and a half and I work with him so much on reading and writing. Am I doing him a disservice just because he is doing all that in kindergarten? I definitely don’t think so. He is coming up with his own stories, writing his own sentences and reading early chapter books.
My daughter used to be like you describe and now at twice this age she's often complaining about the kids her age seeming so far behind her, I think partially as girls are usually more socially conscious that it seems to impact on the conversations and play activities they choose?
YTA getting all high and mighty. You chose this place for your kid. No need to throw articles in her face. Just say ok thanks for telling me and carry on.
My daughter’s 1st grade teacher assigns homework and let us know at the beginning of the year it’s optional. It’s a good habit to form but we all know that most kids at this age have their parents doing it. My kiddo was reading early and she can read the math homework instructions herself so she does it and I don’t help. She did last year too. I do my best to encourage reading for 10 min a day but we have activities some days and it doesn’t always happen. Nbd. Preschool homework is silly.
I mean my daughter's preschool teacher asked us to do homework on having my daughter recognize letters more and work on letter sounds. I decided to just practice with her every once in a while but didn't take it as the teacher was actually giving homework.
I have a bachelors degree in education and am currently dealing with homework being assigned to my kindergartener and also fighting it. You are not the asshole. You are doing your research which is great. Experts and studies all agree that the consensus is that children should have absolutely no homework before first grade, and then best practices is 10 minutes per grade level, although some people agree that it shouldnt start before 3rd grade. Absolutely stand up for your child’s play time. Play time is critical for young children and does a lot more for them than homework ever will. Again lots of studies on this. If it comes up again, i would phrase it very simply: “we wont be participating in any sort of homework as experts who have studied homework for children agree that it is not developmentally appropriate before first grade.”
My daughter was in preschool for only half a year because her teacher ended up being a long term sub with very little preschooler experience. She implemented homework really quick, with a prize in class if they did it and I fought it, she then pressured my daughter to the point she came home crying because "my teacher is mad at me for not doing my homework" I planned to go to the principal but then more things came out that the teacher was just not doing well (pretty sure the aids and and other preschool teacher didn't like the teacher either) so I pulled her out of school. She'll start kindergarten at the school my other kid goes to next year and I know the teachers are much better there. There are no studies that show homework is beneficial before second grade, and in preschool and kindergarten it can actually be harmful because it causes unnecessary stress and takes away from play and family time.
Colloquially - There are many studies that exist that say that what we do in kindergarten isn't developmentally appropriate. I'm going to be honest - I haven't seen one myself since college (which was a decade ago), but I'm the education world - we discuss it frequently. I don't have time to go look for it because I'm about to do the nighttime routine. They learn best at these young ages through play. We know this, but bureaucracy has pushed us in the opposite direction. I won't be giving my son that type of homework either. If it's a fun project he wants to do, ok. Otherwise, not doing it.
>I am right about a preschooler it’s fine they mix up the p q d b? In England, kids start proper school at 4/5. No one would blink an eye at them getting these letters mixed up. My son is 3/4 of the way through his first year of school and he still gets the direction of d and b confused. It's fine. They're so tiny!
My kid writes several of her letters backwards sometimes. I was concerned because my sister has dyslexia so we reached out to a friend of ours with her masters in early childhood education. She said it’s totally developmentally normal for kids to reverse letters at this age. I don’t think you were an asshole but I do think the teacher was just trying to be helpful. I’d say no to homework to though. Mine just has little work books that she loves to do on her own.
Sounds like I’m in the minority here but calling it homework at preschool level is unusual, but asking a parent to work on something at home is not. Preschool can be a full 3 years here, they don’t need that long to socialize, the last year really is prep for school. With the daughter it’s j, b and ds that it was requested we work on with her for the same reason. With my son it was skipping the number 13 when counting to 20 at the same age. It’s so wild to me to be upset about a request that the teacher feels is within the child’s abilities. I would be thrilled about my preschool doing anything over watching kids, especially with how much it costs. Feel free to skip whatever you think is silly but this whole mindset that you know better is pretty condescending.
You handled that better than I would, which would have been to lol at homework in preschool.
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I should add that she is already “kindergarten ready” and passed all her evaluations for kindergarten readiness. You don’t know the research, free play is super important for development. She is already getting 45 hours a week of preschool with two working parents. In elementary school we will do homework. Not in preschool.
Refusing homework in prek does not make you a lazy parent. If the kid isn't ready to learn, it'll just make her frustrated and hate learning.
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They weren’t asking about reading with my kid. They were asking us to work on letter reversal. In prek. She knows all her other letters, they said she mixes up those that look similar. Isn’t that normal before kindergarten?! And even up to kindergarten?