Please give me some ideas for an effective homework policy?

Question

I am a 4th year teacher but I am trying to revamp my approach in terms of a homework policy for my elementary students.

This year I will be teaching 2nd graders (special ed). What would an effective homework policy look like? I want there to be certain routines in place so they know what to expect.

My ideas included:

weekly homework sheet (distributed on Monday)

Reading every night for 20 minutes and a reading log

*Maybe one specific day out of the week would require a reading response, another day would be sentence writing, another might be some reading comprehension passage, ABC order, etc.

*Journal writing prompt daily

*Daily math worksheet or assignment (depending on the unit)

ALSO:

I work in a low income community. Many of my students' parents are illiterate, uninvolved, don't speak English, or don't have the capacity to assist with even certain elementary level assignments. As a result, kids may not complete all of their assignments nor even try to. Some come to school with nothing even when I encourage them to do their best and that I'm not grading for wrong answers. I'm just looking at their work to see how I can help them better. Any tips for this?

I want my homework policy to be effective and clear for the students and their parents. Advice?

Answer 1

Personally, I correct all pieces of paper that the students do. This is a choice that I make so that students will know if they did it right. I have also used stickers on homework folders (the little round ones) when they return their homework. The kids compare the amount of stickers they have and so forth. I also do not give a grade, but if they are close, say a B- and an A, I will look to see if homework is turned in and then I bump it up. I also give a weekly conduct grade and homework and classroom work is part of conduct. I tell the parents if they had missing assignments that week. and it makes their grade go down.

Answer 2

you will probably find that the subject matter is not meaningful to those children who do not show any effort in their homework. if you know your students, you should be able to identify each childs individual passions.

after identifying individual passions, i recommend that you teach your students self discovery learning techniques during class and effective organisation skills to build knowledge trees (concept maps) , that the students can develop and share in small groups.

novak and gowin developed heuristic models and experimented on young children proving that complex science can be taught to early childhood students. i encourage you to research their findings and make your own opinion about this matter.

the only thing that i would add. would be delivery of what i call "mastery knowledge" meaning "information that is presented by credible professionals of the subject of choice".

this should be presented before  the student presents their information.

after the mastery presentation on the topic the student reiterates what they found and what they just learnt form the mastery presentation.