How to Get 1St Grader to Do Homework

Is this homework from the teacher or have you decide he needs extra homework? Can you let him write the words on a white board and then erase them and rewrite them? write them in shaving cream on the bathtub wall. If it is for the teacher, have him skip, then ask her to keep him in for recess once. That should do it.

Homework should be done at the kitchen table as soon as they walk in the door.
I had a snack ready.
They came in, washed hands, sat down, had snack while they told me about their day. Then they did homework. There was no games, TV, or anything until the homework was done and done right.

My question for him would be "What is hard about this for you?"

Maybe he needs some company for moral support. Maybe it would help him to do it differently-- say, writing them with his finger in some flour on a cookie sheet.

I know my son sometimes needs a bit of company. Sometimes, I will spell out the word (verbally) with him while he writes. Sometimes, he needs to see the word and the letters in order to remember how to write them (so be sure to have the words written down for him to reference in regard to letter direction, etc.)

We find that if small helps don't work and it's just stubbornness, an early bedtime helps. "If you are so tired you can't do your work, we'll need you to go to bed a bit earlier tonight." That often helps quite a bit!

do it verbally. Make it fun. Punishing him won't make him do it.

I had similar struggles with my daughter last year in kindergarten. I learned 2 things - every child is motivated by something and the fun stuff comes after homework. I give my kiddos a snack when we get home, they might get to ride bikes for 10 minutes but no screen time before homework is done. My daughter likes to be in control and when I ask her to do something she will oppose me. She also like rewards. So I bought two small glass jars, the big one is filled with marbles, as she completes a page she gets to take a marble (or how many I choose) from the big jar to the small jar. She needs to see something that she is working towards. Points or stickers just did not work for us. When her little jar is full (average every 3 or 4 days) she gets an extra little treat like a starburst or mint. I am not the biggest advocate of rewarding with sweets and I totally respect those of you feel differently. I just know what works for my daughter. It was amazing to me how it still motivates her this year as we start 1st grade. If she is being sloppy or not giving a good effort than I explain that for a good effort she could have earned an extra marble. She is so proud of herself when she earns 3 or 4 marbles per page. Rewarding good behavior is way better than a consequence and I had to lay down the ground rules at the start of the school year. Last year I had to have her do quiet time in her room and told her to come out when she was ready to earn marbles. She is my tough child and I can't imagine our struggles 8 and 10 years from now but for right now this works for us. My son is 8 and he goes right to his work, he gets a treat when she gets one. Hope this helps a little! Oh yes...we have to get our work in by 5:30 or else they are just too tired to do anything!

First off, I minimize homework. They are at school working all day.

I have found so something that works really well for us for spelling and is quick. My son usually gets around 100% now, so what difference does it make whether or not we do exactly what the teacher has requested as long as it's getting the job done? I read the spelling list out loud and he verbally spells each word for me. I Circle the few he misspells and those are the only words we practice. Why waste his time on stuff he already knows? Hie'll get bored and resist, and his brain will shut down (like we all experience when bored). So we'll practice those circled words verbally. If he keeps getting them wrong I have him copy them on paper so he isn't practicing the same mistakes. We will drill those for a few days until he's got them down. To mix it up, sometimes I have him use magnetic letters on a metal cookie sheet to have him correctly spell out his circled words. Or you can do finger in sand or salt or finger paint to spell or whipped cream on cookie sheet or chalk on sidewalk to keep it fun and different.

Tell teacher you practice at home in fun ways and won't always have something to physically turn in. I always tell the teachers at the beginning of the year that I minimize homework. The teacher is in charge at school and I'm in charge of my child at home. They don't always like it, but we have to do what works best for our families and children, and really we have the same ultimate goal: the child mastering the material. We are not one-size-fits-all. I want to be supportive, but as a parent I am trying to develop and nurture the whole child and the teacher usually only sees the academic side of him. It's a fine line to walk since I don't want my child to get in trouble or miss out on fun at school due to not doing all the homework precisely how the teacher wants it. We do what we have to to skate by. However, If my child is struggling with something I usually make up additional enriching activities to help them understand it better and do way more than the assigned homework on the subject. My goal is them learning the material.

There are several tactics that I use when there is refusal to do homework.

First, I talk to find out what the difficulty is. Is there something he doesn't understand? Is he scared of failure? Does he not know where to start? Sometimes you have to get them started. You could get him started by having him trace one word.

Sometimes I use M&Ms as rewards. You could give him 1 M&M for each letter he writes. Give him the M&M after he writes the letter so the reward is immediate. This makes it fun. I'm sure he's new to first grade work and may be overwhelmed.

I don't take things AWAY, because after you do that the child feels like there is no reason to make the effort because the privilege is gone. Instead I say things like "You need to hurry up, I can't wait to watch XYZ with you!"

When all else fails, I put in Time Out until the decision is made to try the work WITH reward. He should sit in a chair, alone, with nothing to do and nothing to amuse himself. There is no time limit to him sitting there, he will sit there until he decides to do Step One (and make Step One easy like writing one letter). Do not talk to him, do not pay attention to him. This has always worked with me as a last resort. I'd let him know that you'd love to play The Homework Game with him, so he will be sitting in the chair until he decides to play. Then busy yourself with something until he decides.

Good luck!

There is a great website about homework, the Homework Lady http://www.homeworklady.com/ you might get some ideas, and talk to the teacher, she might have ideas too, your son might be feeling insecure about his abilities. I hope this helps.

I never made homework a battle. HER homework was not MY responsibility.
She knew that if she didn't undersetand it, she could ask me for help. But I was not going to stand over her and make sure she did it, or nag her about getting it done.
If she didn't do it, she got a zero on the assignment. Natural consequences. Some teachers made students stay in at recess for not turning in homework.

Let him skip it. BUT, nothing fun instead. He can sit quietly at the table.

He'll learn consequences of not doing homework soon enough when the teacher penalizes him with low marks.

Don't stress yourself out about this. Different kids have different learning styles and different paces.

You got a lot of good advice about homework routine and how to handle a reluctant child, but something in your phrasing made me want to ask you to clarify the situation.

Does his homework, per his teacher's instructions, require him to write the words twice or is that your requirement? If that is your doing, then stop it. It isn't a very useful way to learn spelling, particularly when a child is still learning to write. He'd be copying letters, not learning to spell words. If it is the teacher's doing, then she should know better, but that's a conversation you'll have to take up with her.

Maybe sit with him. He has to do it. Example needs to be set now, or this problem will continue. When is he doing it. If it is too late he might be too tired. After school he needs some time to run around before he sits. So sometimes it's all in the timing.

I am guessing that school is back in session in AZ.
Is this hw?

We never ever had our kids write the words at all. Never. Not even once that I can remember.

We had them in the visor of the car and every time we got to a stop light or traffic jam we'd pull them out and say "Spell The" "Spell Cat" "Spell Hat". Then we'd move to the next time we stopped and do the same thing. Our girl is the highest speller in her school for her age. Our boy isn't reading yet but we have hopes he'll finally click with it in first grade.

Some kids don't learn by writing, others don't learn by speaking the material. I suggest you go google Learning Styles and do a few questionnaires with him to see if you can pin down how he learns.

I test high is audio and visual learning styles. I find it tedious and time consuming to take notes. If I just sit and listen I learn the material. If I hurriedly write notes I miss most of what is said. So I stopped taking notes and started taking a tape recorder to class. I found that I could put the tape in while traveling to and from school and I made nearly straight "A"s.

By figuring out a child's learning style you can find out how to most effectively help them learn the material.

I worked with one person who learned by writing. She'd get the office memo's and copy them in to her personal notebook. I'd get frustrated with her taking so long getting the office stuff done so she could go and do the list of things she was responsible for. I would tell her can't you just read it???

It was so hard working with her but once I stopped and thought about it I realized I had an opportunity to learn a different learning style and see how her mind processed the information.

By writing the word she was putting it in her mind through her hands. But listening I was learning the material through my ears. Others can learn by looking at the teacher and watching their lips and their writing on the board.

Each of us is different and we all learn differently.

I can remember conversations with people from high school. I can't remember a single time I wrote anything down and studied it.

He doesn't need to write his spelling words. If he's ever given a essay exam he's not going to be able to recall a single thing he's studied. If he's said it out loud and been able to verbally put the word in sentences he is going to be able to form sentences and paragraphs easier too.

For me as a child, that would have been pure torture. Writing was difficult for me.

What about just making it verbal.

Or getting some flour on a baking pan and have him spell it out in there? Shaving cream and spell it there? Toothpicks? Playdoh?

On the computer?

Is this for school, or something you are assigning him?

If this for school, do you have a routine for homework?

If this is for you, he should eat breakfast and then do his "homework" before he can get up from the table.

Some people have the child come home, have a small snack (no TV, No Computer, No games) and then do homework.

Once it is completed they are then allowed to play.
If he does not do the homework, he will sit there until he does.

Our daughter did better if she could have a snack, some down time and then do homework... But if she had fought about it I would have changed this routine.

Kid's don't run on automatic for homework until they are almost out of elementary school.
You have to sit down with them and go over the work with them.
Try to make it fun and/or have something fun lined up for when homework is neat, finished and correct.
I never told our son the right answers, but I'd tell him he'd have to look over a word or a question) again.

First grade was tough for him.
He had a teacher who never taught 1st grade before (or since - she went right back to teaching kindergarten again the next year - the only reason she taught 1st grade at all was that the principal was a personal friend who's son was in her class and she wanted him in her classroom for one more year) and even when the whole class was not understanding what ever she was covering, she'd repeat the exact lesson over again louder.
(This was a private school.)
She could not teach alphabetizing to our son.
Somehow he got the idea that alphabetizing was arranging the words by how many letters each word had in it from shortest to longest.
This went on for 6 weeks before the teacher told me she just didn't know what to do.
I didn't know what to do either, but then I sat him down with a simple short list of words and ran him through the steps I go through when doing it and he understood it within 15 minutes.
We practiced with longer lists and bigger words and he was an expert in no time at all.
Fortunately 2nd grade was fantastic and the teacher was a kindred spirit who really clicked with our son.

Talk to the teacher and see if she has any tactics. Maybe even a conversation between her and your son will do the job.

And to all the responders saying "just do it verbally", chances are writing the words IS the homework. That's how it is at our school.

We struggled with the day that you had to alphabetize the words. My 2nd grader HATED that homework day. If he ever got a homework pass (his teacher would give them out for good behavior) he always kept it for that day! I would have to just patiently keep reminding him as he was sitting there complaining that his other option is to just be the only one not turning anything in, which made him begrudgingly do it. I would of course also point out had he just done it rather than complaining so much he would have been finished with homework a long time ago (just can't resist saying that one!).

Tell him he gets no TV time or whatever he likes to do or no snacks.

Is it the teacher's assignment that he write the words two times each or is that the way you think you can help him learn his words? If it is a class assignment, he will have to learn the consequences of not doing his work. You might ask the teacher for suggestions and reinforcement. If this is the way you think he needs to study and you have been at a standoff for 40 minutes, i think i would try a new strategy. Start off having him read the words, have him make flashcards, have him spell them out load, have him play games with the words and have him write them down. Give him a spelling test- if he spells them all correctly, then I would back off.