is homework developmentally appropriate for preschool

by Little Sunshine's Playhouse and Preschool

Should Preschoolers Have Homework?

There are some topics that society has deemed controversial in almost every scenario — politics, religion, income levels, whether Taylor Swift is the greatest artist of our time. But for parents, there’s one more topic that can be safely added to the list: homework. There is a big argument among parents, researchers, and educators on whether or not homework is beneficial or unnecessary. Should preschoolers have homework? Are there benefits? Does it make them “competitive” as students?

This article looks at both sides of the argument, but explains why the educators at Little Sunshine’s Preschool decide not to assign homework to preschoolers and those in our pre-K program.

Arguments for Giving Homework to Preschoolers

For context, preschools who assign homework aren’t sending home textbooks and asking for written essays.

For the sake of this article, “homework” and “worksheets” are synonymous. And there wouldn’t be an argument over preschool homework if there weren’t some perceived benefits to worksheets. Here are the reasons some parents and educators are saying preschool homework is important.

• Skill Reinforcement: Those who champion preschool homework say it helps reinforce the skills and concepts children learn in school and gives them additional practice that helps solidify their learning.
• Preparation for Elementary/Middle/High School: Many parents consider the long game when it comes to their children’s education. Homework is often seen as something that prepares kids for what will be expected of them in the future when take-home work becomes more common.
• Parental Involvement: Homework counts as together time … right? It certainly provides parents with a chance to engage with their children and offer support and guidance when it comes to their education.

Arguments Against Giving Homework to Preschoolers

Emotions run just as high for those who argue against giving homework to preschoolers. But for this group, there are more objective reasons that back their thinking. 

• Lack of Evidence: There is limited empirical evidence that supports the idea that homework in preschool leads to a significant “leg up” when it comes to academics. And the research that does exist is a far cry from an endorsement for homework. If anything, it stresses the importance of play and the need for anything done at home regarding a child’s education to be exploratory and engaging. (More on that later.) According to education and parenting expert Alfie Kohn , when it comes to assigning homework in early elementary school at all, “No research has ever found any benefit. It’s all pain and no gain.”
• Developmentally Inappropriate: Critics argue that preschoolers are still in a stage of development where play and hands-on learning are crucial for their growth. If a preschooler who isn’t developmentally ready for homework gets too discouraged, they might “… internalize that they’re not smart or that they’re not good at school,” says Cathy Vatterott , a professor of education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and the author of “Rethinking Homework.” And if they think they’re bad at school, they may feel inappropriate levels of …
• Pressure & Stress: In a 2012 article “ Should Preschoolers Have Homework? ”, New York Times journalist Holly Korby did a survey of parents whose preschoolers were being assigned homework. Overwhelmingly, they all reported that the main change that homework made on their households was an increase in stress for everyone. 
• Family Time: Preschoolers need time to bond with their families, engage in creative activities, and explore the world around them. Excessive homework could interfere with these essential aspects of childhood. In fact, teachers often underestimate the amount of time homework takes by about 50% — that’s time that families would be spending together and are instead struggling through homework. And a 2019 Narbis poll found that 65% of parents reported that the stress of homework had negatively affected their family dynamic. 
• Inequality: For preschoolers, homework is a group activity. Parents have to be involved and help them with any assignment a teacher may send home. And if not all the children in a classroom have the same level of support at home, there’s an immediate jumpstart to educational inequality.

Is There a Compromise?  

At Little Sunshine’s Playhouse, we feel strongly that homework is not appropriate for the children who attend our program. Our Reggio Emilia Philosophy believes in child-directed learning, which asserts that children are capable of learning and following their interests. Assigned homework is at odds with that concept. Instead, we work with our students in the classroom to create a rich learning environment that fosters learning and fuels their passion for education. Once that flame is lit, we have watched it carry on outside the walls of the classroom and into the lives of students — something that is arguably much more effective than a worksheet. 

If your child’s preschool is assigning homework and you feel they shouldn’t be, feel empowered to have a conversation with teachers about the topic. At the very least, feel confident in making the argument that worksheets don’t accomplish much and, if the teacher insists on going the homework route, that the homework be exploring, playing, and listening to bedtime stories . Ultimately, the emphasis during the preschool years should be on fostering a positive attitude toward learning, curiosity, and social development.

• early childhood education preschool curriculum teaching preschoolers

Preschool Homework: A Decision Parents and Teachers Need to Make

• Categories : Parenting preschoolers & toddlers
• Tags : Early education information for teachers, parents & caregivers

What are the benefits of assigning homework to preschoolers?

One of the benefits of having homework for this age group is that it may help reinforce what the child has learned in the classroom. However, homework for children of this age should not be more than ten minutes a day.

Another benefit of preschool homework is that it may create a special bonding routine between the parent and the child, which is very important at this age since they have experienced a major change in their life by starting preschool.

Some children may be mature enough and want to do more schoolwork at school as well as at home.

Age-appropriate preschool homework ideas may include assigning a color of the week or month and having the children bring in pictures or objects of the assigned color. Other preschool homework ideas may involve having the children write their name three times, list items that start with a specific letter (the parents can assist with helping the child write the words), or assign one item per week, such as a letter of the week activity, that is due at the end of the week. Teachers may also leave out some educational age-appropriate worksheets for parents to take for their child, if the child is asking for more work at home.

Many teachers and parents alike believe that homework for this age group is not necessary or beneficial.

A benefit for not having preschool homework is the extra time it gives parents to play and interact with their child. For the preschool age group, playing is how they learn social skills, letters, numbers, and motor skills.

Assigning homework to preschool age children may cause stress to the child, since they may be too young to handle so much schoolwork in a day. This in turn causes stress to the parents, leading to an unhealthy environment.

By the end of the day many children are too tired to go home and do extra schoolwork, making them feel pressured and not liking or wanting to attend school.

Educational Activities

There are many fun and educational activities children can do at home with their parents, such as: singing nursery rhymes, doing art projects, building block activities, reading books, playing house or kitchen, puzzles, finding rocks or shells, and playing at the park. All of these activities are beneficial and educational because they help build fine motor skills, perception of size/weight, vocabulary, math skills, and large motor skills.

There is no right or wrong decision when it comes to having or not having preschool homework. Either decision has wonderful benefits and advantages. Giving a child a comfortable, loving, and safe environment is what is most important to every child’s development.

Applying developmentally appropriate practice

The overall goal for using Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) is to support excellence in early childhood education through decision-making based on knowledge about individual children and child development principles combined with knowledge of effective early learning practices.

To effectively apply developmentally appropriate practices in teaching and make decisions about children's learning and development, a practitioner should:

• Have a strong knowledge and understanding of child development. (What can you expect a child to do?)
• Know individual children. (What interests a child? What in their life may be affecting their learning?)
• Be knowledgeable about the cultural and social expectations of the community that the children live in. (What skills and characteristics are valued by the community or are needed to fit into the community?)
• Be intentional in planning and practice. (Why do you do what you do?)
• Use effective teaching approaches and practices.(What are "best" practices? What regulations and standards must be met?)
• Scaffold children's learning. (What is the learning sequence for skills and concepts? How can you build on experiences?)
• Use a variety of teaching methods. (What are the learning styles of the children? How can you present concepts for varied styles?)
• Recognize that approaches will vary and will change. (What works with your current group may not work with your next group or as the group grows. How can you change or adapt activities, the environment, and teaching?)
• Be a lifelong learner. (What inspires you? What do you want to know more about?)

Applying DAP is an ongoing process and an evolving approach to teaching. Here are some ideas for continuing to learn about DAP and strategies and approaches for using DAP in your program.

DAP: Continuous learning

Learning about DAP is an ongoing process. As an early learning practitioner, you will benefit from exploring the breadth of DAP in nurturing children's overall development (social/emotional, physical, cognitive/intellectual, and cultural) and its role in guiding approaches to teaching. This means embracing continuous professional development through discussions with other professionals, professional reading, and attending professional development opportunities. It also requires time spent reviewing curriculum, activities, and environments - all programming - to assess whether or not what was offered truly is DAP. Using reflection in combination with DAP components - child development appropriateness, individual appropriateness, social/cultural appropriateness - provides many tools to make good decisions for each child.

From the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)

• Position Statement for Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth through Age 8.
• Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs: Serving Children from Birth through Age 8 , 3rd ed., Carol Copple and Sue Bredekamp, ed.
• Basics of Developmentally Appropriate Practice: An Introduction for Teachers of Children 3 to 8 , Carol Copple and Sue Bredekamp.

Tip pages from Penn State Better Kid Care:

• Intentional Early Educators: Tell Me More
• Using Reflection to Connect and Inspire Learning
• Reflections to Move Forward: Gaining Insights from Your Work
• Slow Down - Try a thoughtful, reflective approach to caring for children

Strategies and approaches for applying developmentally appropriate practices

For DAP, the five key areas of early learning practices are often shown as a star, with each point representing one key area. All areas are interrelated and all are important in helping children learn and develop successfully. As an early childhood professional, making decisions about each aspect is a major responsibility.

Community of learners

• Provide nurturing, loving, responsive, joyous, and safe care.
• Build consistent and caring relationships among children, families, and co-workers.
• Value and respect all members of the community.
• Celebrate and embrace diversity, reflecting children's cultures in the classroom and activities.
• Develop open positive collaborations with families and colleagues to support children's learning and development.
• Focus on building self-confidence, self-regulation, and problem-solving skills
• Offer both child initiated and teacher-directed learning experiences.
• Be responsive to children's ideas by offering materials, documentation (samples of their work, photographs, etc), and thoughtful conversation that builds on their ideas, skills, and knowledge.
• Plan for hands on experiences where children learn by doing.
• Plan enough time for children to explore and fully engage (as well as revisit) their interests.
• Build children's learning by adding activities that challenge children and expand on what they can do.
• Identify and define core learning goals for individual children and the program.
• Develop a curriculum framework based on child development, individual learning, and cultures of the children in your group and that reflects learning goals.
• Use the framework for planning activities, experiences, and routines.
• Present rich content, focused work/center areas, and both indoor and outdoor environments that have meaningful connections to children's interests, curiosities, and development.
• Allow for flexibility in programming.
• Assess what is appropriate for children developmentally, individually, and culturally.
• Use assessment tools that allow you to assess children in an authentic, ongoing, and intentional manner.
• Develop a system for collecting and compiling assessment information.
• Use results for planning, decision-making, communicating with families and other colleagues, and to identify children who may need additional learning support.
• Gather information from multiple sources, including families, children, and other teachers.
• Welcome all families into the program and invite them to participate in a variety of ways.
• Work in partnership with families.
• Communicate regularly with families in an open, positive, two-way manner.
• Respect and acknowledge family goals and choices for their child.
• Involve families in planning for their children.
• Be responsive to family concerns.
• Be familiar with community programs and support families by referring them to additional services as needed.

To make effective decisions regarding practices for each area, practitioners need to be reflective and intentional. Take time to reflect on the children, your teaching, and your interactions. Think about what happened, what worked, what didn't, and any surprises. Be intentional in your planning for children, in developing policies and procedures, in designing the environment, and in your approach. Think about why you do what you do, keeping your vision and goals for children in mind. Effective decision-making will guide you in choosing the best strategies for meeting the needs of the children and families.

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Worksheet Woes: Why Worksheets Don't Work in a Preschool Curriculum

Learn why worksheets don’t work in an early education setting and what you can use instead.

• brightwheel

We all remember getting worksheets when we were in school. These lesson aids were positioned as informative, fun, and necessary for us as students to retain the curriculum. But, in modern pedagogy, instructors are rethinking the utility of worksheets, especially in early childhood education. In fact, worksheets may be developmentally inappropriate and work against children learning their preschool curriculum effectively.

In this article, we’ll discuss why preschool worksheets don’t work 100% of the time, and developmentally appropriate activities preschool teachers can use to set the foundation for their children’s future learning instead.

What are preschool worksheets?

Preschool worksheets are lesson aids meant to help young children dive deeper into their curriculum. There are a variety of worksheet styles teachers use, but the most common are those that allow children to trace or write a letter repeatedly, draw lines from pictures to numbers or letters, or mark letters to differentiate between uppercase and lowercase letters. 

On the surface, preschool worksheets seem to be beneficial for children to learn and grow the foundation of their knowledge, but in reality, many believe that worksheets aren’t developmentally appropriate for preschool-aged children.

Why are worksheets not developmentally appropriate?

From two to seven, children are firmly in the preoperational stage of brain development . One of the major pillars of this developmental stage is that children begin to think symbolically and rely on their intuition, rather than logic, to understand the world around them. They’ll need to fully move into the next developmental stage, concrete operational, to start understanding logical reasoning.

Worksheets require logical reasoning to understand and complete, mainly because they often have a “right” answer. At this stage of brain development, children are much more focused on performing make-believe, working on their language and attention span, and working out how the world around them works. So, giving them a lesson aid that doesn’t play to their strengths can work against their long-term development.

Below are some other reasons why worksheets aren’t developmentally appropriate.

Worksheets do not accommodate all learners

Another thing to consider is that worksheets don’t accommodate all learners. They don’t consider that even though every preschooler is technically in the same development stage, not all of them will be at the same level within it. Children progress at different rates and learn in different ways—which is perfectly normal—but because every child has the same worksheet, these nuances can’t be considered.

Worksheets focus on short-term success

Worksheets aren’t developmentally appropriate because these lesson aids typically focus on short-term success rather than long-term understanding. Worksheets are generally given to help drill down a concept, but what they can fail to do is help children understand the core meaning behind it. For example, a worksheet can help children memorize their ABCs, but without context, they won’t understand that letters are the building blocks of all the words they say and read. Preschool should be about the process, not the product, but worksheets focus on the product.

Worksheets discourage socialization 

Children aren’t able to form rational connections based on logic at this stage, and they aren’t able to work together to help each other complete their tasks. At this age, children are still learning social skills. Worksheets are naturally solitary activities, so children are missing out on vital opportunities to develop further, which could cause them to disengage from learning moving forward.

Worksheets can lessen a child’s confidence in themselves

Because worksheets are designed to have a “right” answer, they also have a wrong answer. Worksheets are abstract, meaning there is a set logic for getting to an answer. At this young age, children use tangible reasoning, as well as trial and error, to help them understand the world around them. So, because they can’t use these methods to complete a worksheet, they can easily get discouraged if they don’t know the answer.

Worksheets can take away from more meaningful learning opportunities

Preschoolers thrive in environments where they can play and engage with their classmates and teachers. Worksheets take away from this environment because they’re naturally solitary activities. So, teachers should use hands-on methods instead of worksheets to teach preschoolers.

So, why use worksheets in the classroom?

At their core, worksheets can help reinforce a concept so children can better understand what they’ve just learned. And while worksheets aren’t developmentally or academically appropriate for preschool classrooms, they can be effective teaching aids for older children in a completely different stage of brain development to learn their curriculum.

In later stages of childhood development, children can apply logical reasoning to get to a specific answer. Worksheets work well here because children in later stages of development can work independently or in groups to figure out the answer. Then, once they’ve completed the worksheet, their work can be assessed and corrected to ensure the concept sticks.

How to teach without worksheets

Moving away from using worksheets in a preschool classroom is easy. You’ll need to build lesson plans that prioritize developmentally appropriate and hands-on activities that engage your class. Here are some alternatives to worksheets.

Developmentally appropriate practice

Developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) considers a child’s individual needs and their social and cultural contexts to create an engaging learning experience. With this method, teachers can learn about each child’s strengths, needs, and interests and leverage their child development knowledge to determine the best ways to teach their children. For example, teachers may personalize lessons and activities and set classroom expectations that reflect diverse values and cultures. Developmentally appropriate practice encourages teachers to create a learning environment where children are emotionally supported and motivated to attempt challenging skills. Through observation , teachers can track their children’s progress toward mastering new skills and encourage them to use their skills to complete new tasks. 

Play-based learning

Another alternative to worksheets is incorporating play-based learning . Play-based learning is an approach that uses play as a context for learning. As children play, they engage their imagination, take risks, and learn problem-solving to support their development. It’s an unstructured, process-oriented system that helps children create context around the concepts they’ve learned while also helping aid their social and cognitive development. So, instead of using worksheets to reinforce concepts and memorize content, activities like pretend cooking, singing and acting, or roleplaying can help children achieve similar results in a more hands-on and developmentally appropriate way.

Inquiry-based learning

Inquiry-based learning is a teaching practice that encourages children to use critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills to solve a problem. Challenging your children to think critically and solve problems based on their own experiences will create a more well-rounded learning experience than worksheets can provide. This is because inquiry-based learning allows children to use their intuition to come up with a solution to a problem. With this type of learning, there’s not necessarily a “right” way to get to an answer; instead, each individual can use their knowledge and experience to devise their own solution.

Download our free daily lesson plan template and customize it to suit your teaching style and children's needs.

The bottom line

There are many reasons why preschool worksheets aren’t the best teaching resource in an early education setting, and teachers should fully understand them before building a curriculum around these resources. Instead of worksheets, teachers should use hands-on, engaging methods that incorporate play, developmentally appropriate activities, and child-led exploration and experimentation. In a classroom without worksheets, preschoolers will be in a learning environment that supports their individual strengths and needs where they can fully thrive.

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• Ask the Professor

What is the appropriate age for children to start getting homework?

Debbie leekeenan, director of the eliot-pearson children’s school and a lecturer in the department of child development, fills us in.

“In recent times, there seems to be more homework, especially for our youngest students,” says Debbie LeeKeenan. Photo: iStock

Homework is such an established part of education, it’s hard to believe it’s not all beneficial. But recent studies have found almost no correlation between homework and long-term achievement in elementary school, and only a moderate correlation in middle school.

Yet in recent times, there seems to be more homework, especially for our youngest students. That seems to have led to a backlash. Often-cited negative effects include children’s frustration and exhaustion, lack of time for other activities and downtime and a loss of interest in learning. Many parents lament that homework is a constant source of tension at home.

What is the purpose of homework? The best homework assignments are meaningful and authentic and are connected to classroom learning. Homework can be used to teach time management and organization, to broaden experiences and to reinforce classroom skills. Parents are not expected to play the role of the teacher or introduce new skills.

Homework can certainly benefit students. It may encourage:

Practice and review —such as reading 15 minutes each night, studying spelling words or number facts

Pre-learning —a way to introduce a new topic; for example, if the class will be studying ants, having students write questions they have about ants

Processing —if learning about moon phases in class, students would observe the moon for several nights and draw what they see and identify the phases

Checking for understanding —keeping a journal about science experiments done in class, for instance

How much homework is too much? The idea that “less is more” rules here. According to the National Education Association, guidelines are no more than 10 minutes per grade level per night (that’s 10 minutes total for a first-grader, 30 minutes for a third-grader). Some students do their homework on their own, and some parents help their children. Many teachers now give homework once a week that is due the following week to allow more flexibility and accommodate a range of student and family schedules.

Successful homework experiences have strong home-school partnerships, where the purpose of homework is clearly defined by the teacher and communicated with the student and family. When in doubt, ask!

Do you have a question for Ask the Professor? Send it to Tufts Journal editor Taylor McNeil .

Posted September 01, 2010

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Preschool.org

The one-stop resource for preschool parents, teachers, directors, and owners!

Homework for Preschool Students

Homework is a very touchy subject when it comes to very young children. This is probably because when people think of homework, they think of worksheets. That would not be developmentally appropriate for preschoolers, but homework does not have to mean worksheets. Preschoolers do not typically get homework, or at least not in the same way an older child would. The more a child practices a skill though, the better. That is all homework is after all, practice.

For preschoolers, homework can actually be quite a bit of fun since they can practice the skills that they are working on through play and exploration. In preschool, the goal of homework should be to practice a skill and to show parents how they can support their child’s learning. Here are a few things to think about when deciding whether or not to give your preschoolers homework.

WHAT THEY SHOULD BE LEARNING

As with anything in preschool, when you are planning homework activities for your preschoolers it is important to be intentional. Use your observations and assessments of your preschoolers to inform your planning. Their homework should have them working on the skills that they need the most practice with, which means that it should be individualized as much as possible.

Any homework that focuses on fine motor skills, literacy, or problem solving will benefit your preschoolers a great deal and help them reach their developmental goals. Here is a list of things you can have your preschoolers do for homework.

• Playing board games
• Scavenger hunts
• Matching games
• Letter recognition activities
• Scissor skills practice
• Simple crafts
• Sorting by color, shape, or size
• Science experiments
• Sight words games (for those that are ready)

HOW LONG SHOULD HOMEWORK TIME TAKE

Any homework that you give to your preschoolers should be open ended and allow the child to decide how long they interact with it. The more engaging their homework is, the more they will want to do it.

It is important to consider the parents’ time as well. One of the goals of homework in preschool is to teach parents how they can support their child’s learning and development. If the homework takes too long, or is too complicated, the parents will be less likely to have their child do it. Design your preschoolers’ homework to be activities that the parent can engage with them for a time, and then the child can continue on their own if they choose to.

HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU ASSIGN HOMEWORK

In preschool, homework should never be required. You want your preschoolers to want to do it. If the homework that you give to your preschoolers is fun and engaging, and easy for their parents to implement, your preschoolers will look forward to doing it. You could assign homework every night, or just for over the weekends. It is completely up to you, there is no right or wrong answer to how often you should give your preschoolers homework.

It is important to make any homework that you give to your preschoolers fun. The goal is to foster a love of learning after all. Make sure that your preschoolers’ homework is something that they will get a lot out of, even if they only work on it for a few minutes.

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How To Teach Preschool Without Worksheets

I realize that some of you may be angered by the implication that worksheets are not good teaching practice or even harmful. My goal is to provide information only, if you choose to read it you can agree or disagree with my views, but at least I have put my message out there.

A new “code name” for worksheets is “morning work.” What a child really needs in the morning is a warm greeting from the teacher and interaction with peers!

My  No More Letter of the Week page that also fits with this theme.

The following is a wonderful article about not using worksheets in the early childhood classroom:

Article: The Worksheet Dilemma by Dr. Sue Grossman

Arguments against using worksheets:

Some of the worksheet quotes below are taken from the article above.

• “While children may have the ability to perform a task, that does not mean that the task is appropriate and should be performed” Dr. Sue Grossman
• Worksheets can be used only one way. Worksheets and coloring books are generally considered convergent materials. They lead children to think that there is only a single correct way to use them, and they require little, if any, higher-order thinking.
• Our goal as professional educators should be lessons that encourage divergent thinking, not convergent thinking.
• Worksheet-based curricula dampen enthusiasm for learning.
• If worksheets have a place in the classroom they would be better found in classrooms of older children who have a background for working with symbols and abstractions (Bredekamp, S., 1987; Rosegrant, T., 1992).
• Worksheets and workbooks should be used in schools only when children are older and developmentally ready to profit from them (Bredekamp, S. & Rosegrant, T., 1992).
• “Teachers who use worksheets believe they are demonstrating children’s learning progress to parents. Unfortunately worksheet activities are not developmentally appropriate and can cause many problems.” Dr. Sue Grossman.
• “Worksheets typically have a ‘right answer.’ a child is expected to circle the rhyming words or match the pictures of things that start with the letter ‘G.’ children may learn quickly that putting down a wrong answer is emotionally costly. Worksheet activities may make them feel ignorant and incompetent, so that they learn to stop taking risks by guessing.” Dr. Sue Grossman
• The mere accomplishment of the worksheet task does not signify the child’s ability to read or comprehend.
• If worksheets are the answer then why haven’t we replaced teachers with copy machines?
• “In any group of young children asked to do a paper-pencil task, some will succeed and some will be less successful. The successful children may truly comprehend the task or may simply have guessed correctly. The less successful ones often learn to think of themselves as failures, and ultimately may give up on school and on themselves These children may react to the stress created by fear of giving the wrong answers by acting out their frustrations and becoming behavior problems, or by withdrawing and becoming reclusive.”

If we cannot demonstrate children’s progress with worksheets, how do we provide evidence of learning? Here are several ways to demonstrate learning that moves beyond using preschool worksheets:

• Work Samples
• Observational Records
• Appropriate Worksheets: For example, children experimenting with objects to discover if they sink or float can record their observations on paper divided into a float column and a sink column. This shows that they are doing actual scientific experimentation and recording the data.
• Parent Newsletters: Teachers can send home parent newsletters which explain the activities children are doing at school and the teacher’s goals and objectives. When parents understand the value of developmentally appropriate activities they will feel confident that their children are learning and growing, not “just playing.”
• Center Labels: Signs in the classroom describing what children learn in the various learning centers help adults understand the value of children’s work in that area.
• Photographs: Photographs of daily activities in the classroom can be displayed around the room and in hallways. They provide graphic evidence to parents, administrators, and other teachers of children working and learning in a rich, exciting atmosphere.

Below are some common misconceptions about the use of worksheets in the classroom.

“If the kids are choosing the worksheets, there is no problem. It can’t be wrong if the kids enjoy it, are learning from it, and doing it through their own motivation.”

FALSE. Children do not always know what is best for them, just because they like something is not an indication that it is good for them. How many times have your students come to school dressed inappropriately for the weather or chosen to eat candy for lunch rather than the sandwich their mother packed for them? Because children do not know what is best for them, that is why we, as educators, must purposefully prepare appropriate materials and activities for our students instead of just copying off another worksheet, that is a cop-out in my opinion. As trained professionals in the field of education it is our duty to teach our students to the best of our ability and keep their best interests in mind while doing so. If we do not do that then we are cheapening the profession and adding to the already tarnished image teachers hold in this country.

If I put out apples and a big bowl of candy for snack the majority of my students would choose the candy, but as a professional educator I would never put out the bowl of candy because I know it’s not good for them. I would have to peel and slice the apples to get the kids to eat them, it would be more work for me, but the apples are better for them than the candy so that is what I would do. The same holds true for worksheets, I know that there are better ways to teach so I don’t offer worksheets to my students so they aren’t faced with making a choice between an appropriate and inappropriate activity.

“It’s all about balance. You can use worksheets if you balance it out with other hands-on types of activities. A little bit of something can’t hurt.”

FALSE. Balance? Balance what? It’s o.k. to have a balance of inappropriate and appropriate activities in your classroom? So some parts of the day the children are receiving appropriate instruction and other parts they are not? That statement just doesn’t make sense. If worksheets are inappropriate then why is a “little bit” of anything inappropriate o.k.?

As for the fine motor part of the statement, there are many more appropriate types of activities children can be doing to develop their fine motor skills than doing a worksheet, again, I find this to be a cop out. It’s easier to copy a worksheet and slap it on the table in front of the student rather than carefully planning out activities that will really engage them and develop their fine motor abilities at the same time. For more handwriting tips click HERE .

“Kids don’t ‘do well’ academically when worksheets aren’t used”

FALSE. When students are struggling academically the first thing that needs to be examined is teaching practice, we cannot blame academic failure on the lack of worksheets. I have seen situations where teachers were relying heavily on worksheets and then they became “forbidden”, the result was an academic drop in the students because the teachers didn’t know how to teach without using worksheets. The first thing that any educational institution should do before “banning” worksheet use is to make sure the teachers know how to teach without them.

“My kids beg for worksheets because they want to be like their older siblings and do “real” homework. There’s nothing wrong with sending a few worksheets home, it’s not like we’re doing them at school”

FALSE. When we send worksheets home for “homework” we are sending the message to parents that worksheets are the way that young children learn best. Most parents are not professional educators, it’s our job to not only do what is best for our students but to also educate their parents about what is best as well, if we don’t then who will?

Many parents don’t know any other way to help their children at home other than worksheets and workbooks. For this reason we hold a “ Homework Night ” early in the school year every year to educate our parents about how they can help their children at home. Our presentation includes information on how worksheets are not appropriate for young children and why. We explain that worksheets teach children that there is only one right answer and they do not allow children to think for themselves. We explain how writing on paper with lines (two solid and a dotted line in the middle) is not appropriate for certain ages and why (visual accuity, fine motor not developed enough, creates frustration and lack of desire to write etc) We also tell parents that there is a difference between their young child and older siblings and how older children are more developmentally ready to profit from using worksheets occasionally. Then, we introduce our homework program and show the parents specific ways they can help their children at home each night.

Practice for Kindergarten

“I need to use worksheets because they need the practice for kindergarten, that’s what they’ll be doing in kindergarten”

FALSE. My job as a professional educator is to help each child be as successful as possible in my classroom. “I will not prepare my students for inappropriate practices by doing inappropriate things in my own class.” – Karen Cox, Prekinders.com If worksheets are what they’re doing in Kindergarten then perhaps the teaching practices in those classrooms need to be examined. This is how the worksheet cycle perpetuates itself, one teacher or grade level relies heavily on worksheets for instruction and then all the other grades/teachers fall in behind them at the copy machine. I challenge teachers everywhere to break the worksheet cycle and actually teach young children instead of occupying them with worksheets. It’s just like peer pressure in high school, don’t let yourself fall prey to it.

Coloring Sheets

“What about coloring sheets? Are they considered worksheets? How else will my students learn to stay in the lines?”

• Coloring sheets are not appropriate for use in preschool.
• Coloring pages and sheets do not support the development of creativity and critical thinking.
• If a child needs to work on their fine motor development, pincer grasp, or pencil control, there are many other ways to do so which are just as effective and more engaging.

More Literacy Ideas from Pre-K Pages

13 thoughts on “How To Teach Preschool Without Worksheets”

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Thanks for this very important information

So much information. I do agree that as a society we are using too many worksheets and not enough active learning experiences. We all have our own learning styles and therefore it makes sense to use multisensory technigues for teaching. Developmentally worksheets are not appropriate for little learners; many of which have not yet established a hand dominance or an efficient grasp. Children learn by doing, by partaking, by being involved.

I’m so pleased to see this article, being a teacher means hard work, dedication and creativity, work sheets are an easy way out for teachers to keep children occupied, missing out a lot of hands on learning opportunities. I personally feel the same way about homework for preschool age children.

Pingback: Are Preschool Printables Really Better Than Worksheets? - Fun-A-Day!

“Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites” is a great book that addresses this very issue, Vanessa. I personally don’t take issue with students (late K and older) using some kind of paper to record their work to include in their portfolio, but it is not a worksheet. With all the pressure to create 1st graders out of kindergartners and kindergarteners out of preschoolers, etc., as well as the proliferation of worksheet-style materials for sale online now, it seems that “best practice” and what is developmentally appropriate for kids has gone by the wayside. This is such an important topic–thank you for addressing the falsehoods AND offering solid alternatives!

Vanessa- I have always loved your website and have adopted many of your ideas into my classroom. However, this article is by far the most important. Over the past few years I have transformed my pre-kindergarten curriculum from being heavy worksheet based to provocation based. Instead of making copies, I am now carefully analyzing every material and activity to ensure it lends itself to discovery and scaffold learning. The results prove it has been well worth my time. My students are happier, less stressed, engaged, and learning. I once believed that worksheets were the only way I could control their academic process. Letting go of this control was the hardest thing to do, but children can and do create and construct their own learning when given plenty of time and the right materials. I offer my support of any teacher making this transition. It is not easy, but when you see a child’s face with they have their first “ah-ha” moment-it will inspire you to keep away from the copy machine.

Your comment made my day, Monique! I’m thrilled to hear about your success with moving away from using worksheets in your classroom, kudos!

I’ve been a Homeschool mom of 7 since the early 1990’s. I’m still currently homeschooling 4. I’ve learned that worksheets/workbooks have not been a good experience. I feel that when you hand a child a worksheet, 90% of the work has already been done for them. All the child has to do is fill in a few blanks. My children struggled with retaining the actual intended information. I took a drastic approach and ditched the workbook and worksheets. I bought cheap composition books and had the children actually wrote their own content for lessons. When I tried to teach phonics through workbooks my children took FOREVER to grasp the blends a day rules. One day I decided to pick the “oo” and have my son go through the house to see if he could find things that had the “oo” sound. He brought me a bottle of “shampoo”. After that he was pointing and reading everything going with the “oo” sound. He grasped it within minutes this way rather than weeks of me trying through workbooks to no avail. So I’m just not a fan of workbooks and worksheets. Our homeschool went from stacks of books to a simple composition book and a few pencils. They research everything on their own and read and copy great classic literature. My 9 year old son has beautiful handwriting compared to his 15 year old cousin who still writes in print block letters. Simple and to the point is the best.

Hi Sadie, This is great information for many parents and educators. I haven’t used worksheets in a school setting but I have at home, as the material was sent home by the teacher. Through the years in early childhood, I have seen that hands-on is so much better and effective as you have done. However, it can be hard for some to create material for their child without prior knowledge of how to teach them. I think that many teachers and parents have gone through the worksheets and workbooks methods of teaching before they figured out that it wasn’t effective for their preschoolers.

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Hello, I had this discussion today about worksheets in the preschool classroom. I have never used worksheets in the classroom, I have always created my own material to help the children learn. However, I for some reason was going to use a worksheet for the first time as an assessment tool. The teacher in another classroom informed that worksheets were not educational for this age group. I agreed with her and I am continuing with what I have been doing for a while. I am more of a hands-on teacher who creates his own lessons. I am not sure what led me to want to use worksheets in the first place. Thanks for your input about worksheets, it is greatly appreciated.

Worksheets stunt imaginations, let them think for themselves. There will be plenty of time for sucking the life out of children’s imaginations when they get to public school.

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7 Reasons Your Preschoolers Do Not Need To Do Worksheets Yet

By: Author Tanja McIlroy

Posted on Last updated: 30 July 2024

Categories Child Development

Do you find yourself looking for worksheets to do with your preschool child at home? Are you tired of just watching your child play all day?

Perhaps seeing your child with a pen and paper seems more like real learning?

It’s time to ask the real question. Are worksheets developmentally appropriate for preschoolers?

The main reason I started this blog is that I have a passion for talking about the benefits of play and explaining to parents and teachers how their children are learning.

Sometimes I’m not sure if I’m informing about the benefits of play or if I’m actually defending play.

In this day and age, there seems to be a trend towards formally educating young preschoolers, with the most popular aid being the worksheet .

Why There Should Be No Worksheets in Preschool

For many years now, theorists have researched child development and it is widely known and accepted that children learn through play .

Children don’t just learn through play, they learn absolutely everything through play!

This happens during the first 6 years. Without play, they cannot learn to think, problem-solve, read, write or do maths.

Sadly, the trend over the last few years has become to formalise young children’s education – to move it away from play towards more academic activities.

Sometimes the schools feel pressure to push children ahead, but often it is the parents who see more value in formal activities.

Workbooks and worksheets are not developmentally appropriate for preschoolers for many reasons.

When I was teaching preschool it was as if any activity that looked formal or was printed on a worksheet was seen as real learning and any kind of play activity was seen as passing time or having fun .

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, any time your 3-year-old is working with pen and paper on a formal task is a great big waste of his time.

7 Reasons Why Worksheets are Not Appropriate for Preschoolers

Here are 7 reasons why worksheets don’t work and are actually damaging to kids’ overall holistic development.

1. Gross Motor Skills

Let’s start at the beginning. Children learn through their bodies . From the time they are born, they learn to discover their world through their bodies and through their senses.

Gross motor skills refer to a child’s large muscle development.

A baby cannot hold a pencil and write because she has not yet learned to hold her head up, to sit straight, to walk, balance, etc.

Only after several years building these large muscles and developing the small muscles (known as fine motor), will she be able to hold a pencil and write with control.

Preschoolers should be spending most of their time running around outside, playing and working all the muscles in as many different movement activities as possible.

This, combined with lots of fine motor activities, will ensure your child is physically ready for school .

Not only do children need to be able to hold a pencil, but they also need to be able to sit upright for a fair amount of time and have strong core muscles.

They need balance, coordination, muscle tone and strength.

Movement also develops the actual pathways in the brain, creating new connections.

A small child’s cognitive development has therefore not yet reached the point it needs to be at to start writing. Their time is best spent moving and developing their brain .

Movement develops a child’s concentration span – a very important factor when asking a child to sit at a desk and work on a formal task.

2. Fine Motor Skills

As mentioned above, children then need to work on their fine motor skills . They naturally develop their large muscles before their small muscles.

Small muscles include those of the fingers, toes, tongue, eyes, etc.

Writing might seem like an appropriate fine motor activity for your child but it is actually the last piece of the puzzle.

Well-developed fine motor skills enable a child to write; writing does not build foundational fine motor skills.

There are so many activities that parents can choose from to develop fine motor skills. Here are a few examples:

• Painting with brushes of different sizes
• Drawing with large and small wax crayons
• Building puzzles
• Moulding playdough
• Cutting and pasting
• Drawing with pencil crayons
• Playing with pegboards
• Lacing and threading
• Drawing with jumbo or small chalk

If your child spends much of his time engaged in these kinds of activities, by the time he starts school, his fingers will be strong enough to hold a pencil and his body will be able to cope with the physical task of sitting for an extended period of time and writing.

It also takes time for children to learn to use the correct pencil grip . If they are forced to write too early they generally form an incorrect grip which can be very difficult to undo.

3. Concentration Span

During the first few years, a child’s concentration span is relative to their age. An appropriate length of time is roughly 2 to 3 minutes per year of age .

Therefore, a 3-year-old should be able to concentrate for between 6 and 9 minutes on one task at a time. [ source ]

He may play for longer than that, but will usually be swapping from one kind of activity to another.

Poor concentration span is one of the biggest problems seen in elementary and primary schools.

Spending time making your 3-year-olds fill in worksheets is not helping them build their attention span – if anything it is hurting it.

You are expecting your child to sit for an amount of time that is not age-appropriate for him.

One of the best ways to build concentration is through movement . So, although it may seem like a workbook is helping to improve your child’s concentration, a better way to do this is to send them out to play.

4. Developmental Appropriateness

The preschool years are for learning through play. There is a multitude of research and evidence that backs this up.

There are some great studies that have been carried out in various schools and countries where they have tried to formalize education in the early years, in an attempt to better prepare their learners or speed up their development.

These studies show how children did not benefit educationally. It only impacted their learning negatively later on in their school career.

In most countries, children begin formal education at roughly the age of 6. Preschool is, therefore, a time of informal learning, and there is no place for worksheets.

In the study on formal instruction in Germany, in particular, children who were given more academic instruction in preschool performed worse in reading and mathematics by the fourth grade than those who had attended a play-based preschool!

Your child will be using workbooks for at least another 12 years so they will not be missing out if they don’t start in preschool.

5. Maturity

Little children need time to mature and grow .

You would never expect a newborn baby to listen intently to a story or turn the pages of a book herself. However, we expect our 3-year-olds to sit down and do formal “work,” in the belief that they will somehow learn quicker.

Here is a practical example. Every time I had a parent meeting at school, I would be asked the exact same question – “Does my child know the numbers and letters yet?”

A child has the ability to memorize the numbers to 100 and beyond, and they also have the ability to memorize the letters of the alphabet if they repeat it enough times. However, they don’t have the maturity to actually understand what they represent or why they are meaningful.

A child who can count 6 actual, physical objects is more mathematically advanced than a child who can rote-count to 100 without stopping.

As for letters, memorizing the letter names does not have much to do with learning to read well.

If, for example, they have poor phonological awareness, they might know what a letter b is, but they could struggle to blend a b and r together in the word broom . This child may find reading challenging.

His time in preschool would have been better spent learning nursery rhymes and playing sound games in order to develop this skill. Then combining the sounds b and r would not be such a challenge later on.

Memorizing the letters b , a and t does not mean the child can blend them together or break them up when trying to decode the word bat . That is what pre-reading skills are for.

Learning at school should always be meaningful and aimed at a child’s maturity level. The constant need to aim higher than where your child is at only results in frustration, a feeling of not achieving success and poor skill development.

6. Time to Play

Any time that is wasted on formal activities is replacing time when your children should actually be playing.

When your preschool child is drawing , singing, listening to stories, playing in the garden, climbing and building, she will have no shortage of play activities to fill up her day.

However, once you start introducing the formal workbook it has to be completed at the expense of real learning .

Throw in some screen time and children’s playtime gets pushed to the end of the priority list.

7. Short-Term Strategies

Learning should be a long-term strategy .

Let’s say a child is constructing a tower out of blocks. There are so many thought processes that go into this activity.

She has to think about how to build the physical structure and she has to solve problems as she goes along. One side may be shorter than another, or she may have difficulty balancing the tower.

A simple activity such as this is building long-term thinking and problem-solving strategies . Filling in a worksheet and tracing the letter b ten times is a very short-sighted strategy.

Because the tracing activity is not really meaningful to a child, he will retain the knowledge for a short period of time and probably be able to recognize the letter if you show it to him soon after; however, he hasn’t really learned any life skills through the activity or any skills for working with and manipulating sounds.

I have come across so many programs designed to teach children as young as 3 to read. Amazingly, you can actually teach such a young child to read basic words with enough drill work and repetition.

However, monitor that little child over the next few years and there is no guarantee he will be reading at an age-appropriate level.

Because he has missed out on so many foundational skills. His auditory perception , visual perception , memory, understanding of rhyme and syllables, vocabulary and comprehension, concentration and maturity are all still developing.

English is a complex language made up of many sounds – not just the 26 letters of the alphabet. These change when they are joined together and they change based on their position in a word.

Some words follow no apparent phonemic rules. These are called sight words because they cannot be decoded according to a set of rules.

Your 3-year-old who was taught to read with a workbook is really going to struggle once he gets into the second or third grade and reading becomes about his level of auditory and visual perception.

In other words, it will depend on his ability to work with sounds and recognize familiar shapes and patterns, not his ability to recognize a single letter.

It is also important for him to be able to hear where each sound is in the word – in the beginning, middle or end.

What is a good long-term strategy for developing reading ability?

Something as simple as reciting nonsense rhymes with various sound patterns or playing a game of I-Spy . Spot words around the room that begin with a particular sound and your child will start to develop an ear for that sound.

What is Your Child Learning at Preschool?

If your child is coming home on a daily basis with photocopied worksheets, colouring pages or other kinds of formal activities, you can rest assured that either the teachers haven’t studied early childhood development or the school is feeling pressure to show parents more “formal” learning.

What your child is learning in this environment is not ideal.

Here is a very amusing article titled “ 5 Common Preschool Activities That Can Crush Your Kiddo’s Curiosity and Love of Learning ”. The author, Mckenna Meyers, points out 5 things that she terms a “waste of time” and she is 100% correct.

“ Activities like reciting the days and months of the year every morning, craft projects with no individual creativity, workbooks, learning a letter a week for months on end, as well as listening to a teacher give a “lesson” are all a great big waste of your child’s time.”

I couldn’t agree with her more.

Here is an interesting quote from her article on the topic of workbooks:

“Nothing seems to impress uninformed parents more than workbooks. They have it in their heads that paper-pencil tasks are real learning. The rest of it—painting at the easel, digging in the sandbox, riding tricycles—all seems frivolous and hardly worth the cost of tuition.

When watching children play, they ask impatiently, “Why isn’t the teacher teaching them anything?

Preschool owners must keep their clients satisfied. Therefore, too many of them give in to parental demands for worksheets. It doesn’t matter if they’re for handwriting, math, reading, or phonics. If kids are sitting quietly at tables writing on them, these parents feel real learning is taking place and the kids are getting ready for kindergarten.

The owners know research doesn’t support this. They know workbooks aren’t developmentally appropriate. But they want to stay in business so they go with the flow, even though the children suffer.”

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Sunday 5th of June 2022

I do have preschoolers who are willing to trace, some are not. But our staff never, never force someone to stay at the table. Not even art table, let alone tracing table.

Whenever a child is willing to come trace with me, I ask them, what words should we trace?

They choose words that are meaningful to them. Often, it's their name, or the word mommy and daddy, or mommy and daddy's names.

5-10 minutes top, and only if they enjoy it. Otherwise they just go choose another activity. It's a room full of activities to choose from. Drama, blocks, floor toys, sensory, tracing is only one of the choices for them.

Some kids really like it. They even switch out each colour for each letter that they trace.

Tanja Mcilroy

Monday 6th of June 2022

This is a wonderful approach. Doing it this way ensures that kids are learning in a meaningful way. When they are asking to do something is when they are at their most receptive time for learning, so they would definitely be learning some pre-writing and reading skills!

Wednesday 23rd of February 2022

I have a three year old and bought him a tracing book that’s done with dry erase markers. It has connect the dots from the car to the finish line or draw a flower by dots and things like that. When we have quiet time we might pull it out and work on it together for however long his interest allows. Alternately, we might trace his name with dry erase markers (it’s 5 letters). I wouldn’t guess we ever spend more than 5 minutes, if that sometimes, on it it. Is this also frowned upon? For reference he spends the remainder of the day playing with his almost 2 year old brother. Coloring, painting, building with blocks, play dough, sensory bins, reading, taking walks and dress up are all in rotation in their scope of play. We also allow them to help with food prep, gardening and self care in age appropriate ways. As of recent, we rarely do screen time and might go up to a couple of days without it. I ask in sincerity as I incorporated the “writing” book as an introduction to writing concepts and feel, considering the time spent on it, that it is harmless. He also loves writing and erasing with the markers so my thought process was why not make it productive? I’m not learned in the field of education. Just a mom wanting to do what’s best for my off spring =). I appreciate your feedback.

Thursday 24th of February 2022

Hi Chris, thanks for your comment. From the sounds of it, your 3-year-old is emersed in wonderful play experiences all day and you are doing an amazing thing exposing him to all those activities. Five minutes of tracing and "writing" is absolutely harmless in that context. If he enjoys it, there's no reason to stop. While forcing children for extended periods of time to sit and concentrate on academic tasks is not ok, 5 minutes with a willing child can even have educational value - he is still developing a pencil grip while doing it, he's concentrating and maybe learning the vocabulary around what he is doing. It's all about balance and following their lead. When kids show an interest in doing or learning something - go with it. When he gets bored or doesn't want to trace, don't insist, as the tracing and writing skill itself is not necessary at this stage and won't really contribute towards his overall reading and writing ability. Most kids do want to learn their name though so again - perfectly harmless in tiny doses. I hope that helps!

Sunday 12th of December 2021

Worksheets for pre-schoolers? That is a joke. Even in kindie it is unnecessary.

Monday 20th of December 2021

Agreed 100%

Maryann K Harman

Friday 16th of April 2021

Tanja, I absolutely love your article and have shared it with a group I am moderator of. So many people are sending in posts to share worksheets and I've been declining them. Your article helped me with supporting research. Thank you. I am the founder of Music with Mar., LLC and am passionate about tying the brain research to songs and activities. Please check out my website if you wish.

Monday 19th of April 2021

Hi Maryann, thanks for your comment. I will definitely look up your website - it sounds great!

Jessica Delport

Tuesday 10th of November 2020

As a new homeschooling mom of my two girls (age 4 and 2) this is really encouraging ... I have heard Of the importance of play but somehow always feel like I am not doing enough formal stuff (something to physically show for what we are learning) this article makes me feel so much more free to just enjoy the play aspect and rather focus on that!

Wednesday 11th of November 2020

Comments like this just make my day. Enjoy every minute that your kids are playing. They'll be better off for it!

How To Create Kindergarten Homework That Parents And Kids Will Love

Kindergarten homework is not developmentally appropriate.  There I said it.  Five-year-olds are not meant to sit down to do paper and pencil tasks about reading and writing.  Somewhere along the way, someone who was most definitely not a kindergarten teacher decided that five and six-year-olds MUST read by the end of kindergarten. 

This created unrealistic expectations of teachers to somehow overcome brain science and teach students how to read.  Teachers began assigning sight word homework in addition to leveled readers and math worksheets.  Suddenly, kindergarten kids have as much homework as older elementary students.  Yet, there are no studies to support the notion that homework in kindergarten helps kids to achieve more. 

Some teachers have stopped assigning homework altogether but others are required to assign kindergarten homework.  Read on to find developmentally appropriate ways to assign kindergarten homework that parents will love.

Teachers Under Pressure

The pressure put on teachers to have all kindergarten students meet the same high academic standards at the same time is completely unrealistic.  Then that pressure was transferred to teachers who decided that in order to achieve this goal, they needed to share the responsibility with parents.  Then parents decided that they need  kindergarten homework to help them to achieve this goal.

This notion isn't all bad.   Sharing learning responsibilities with families is a productive way to help students achieve and giving parents activities and skills to practice at home is certainly helpful.   The problem is that we've lost sight of what we know is natural child development.   

So what can teachers do to help their young students to practice skills at home but still allow them to be kids?  We can start by giving students a variety of homework options rather than requirements.  In distance learning or remote learning situations, teachers are under even more pressure!  Check out this page for some distance learning types for Kindergarten teachers. 

Keep Homework Fun!

Kids work hard all day (or for half the day) at school.  They don't need to go home to sit with worksheets and pencils to continue to practice sight words (which the latest brain research doesn't support anyway, but that's a blog post for another day). 

In school, we know that all kids have different learning styles so we need to remember this when assigning homework.   Sending the same worksheet with each student is not differentiating.  You can differentiate homework by giving students options and allowing families to choose the activities that are the best fit for their students.

Keep “assignments” fun and engaging with a variety of ways to practice important foundational skills.  Think about how you design engaging centers and apply that to homework.  Practice writing letters and numbers in sand, finger paint or shaving cream!  Create math problems with toys or breakfast cereal.  Play games with dice to develop number sense and social skills like taking turns.  There are so many fun possibilities!

Give Families Homework Options!

Think about your academic goals for the week or the month.  Then create a list of 15 – 20 choices full of skills you want your students to practice.  This can be a list, a chart, or even a calendar!  You can send this list home to give families options and give kids some choice in their assignments. 

You can choose to include only academic tasks but I like to include some more developmentally appropriate skills that are often overlooked.  Skills like memorizing phone numbers and addresses are important things kids do not often do anymore.  You can add life skills like practice playing games (winning and losing with grace), tying shoes, helping to fold laundry and more.

I try to limit paper-pencil options.  However, when I do include them, I try to keep them open-ended.  For example, instead of practicing writing letters with a pencil, encourage students to write letters in sand or pudding.  If you want kids to practice writing, give them fun writing prompts or open-ended options.  For math practice, instead of doing a page of addition problems, have students tell and solve their own addition story problems using their favorite toys.  There are a lot of easy, no extra materials needed ways to practice these skills that won't stress kindergarten kids or parents.

Need to know more about assigning Kindergarten Homework?

How Do You Find the Time to Revamp Homework?

Time is one of the biggest challenges any teacher faces.  Finding time to rework your kindergarten homework assignments is difficult.  I can help!  Sign up for my e-mail list here and I will send you a completely free, editable homework menu to try in your classroom!  If you don't have time to create your own, I have monthly homework menus in my TPT store.  You can check them out here. 

I am hopeful that the pendulum is swinging back to more developmentally appropriate practices in kindergarten.  I'm happy to see that many districts across the country are returning to play-based learning in kindergarten.  This gives me hope!  In the meantime, let's try some new homework options for our youngest students.  What other suggestions do you have for homework in kindergarten?  I'd love to hear them!

One Comment

Your first statement in the last paragraph says it all! I have been making some noise about developmentally appropriate practices for years. We are beginning our school year with testing, testing, testing! I will be teaching students face to face and online at the same time. I have no idea where to start so I decided to do some research and found your site. I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. Please keep up the good work!!

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It's time for parents to help change homework policies for young kids.

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As a rule-follower and the kind of person who enjoys task completion so much that folding laundry can feel therapeutic, I didn’t anticipate having a problem with homework. That also had something to do with my kid, who regularly requested “homewurt” starting at age 3. An accomplished mimic, she’d pull a chair up alongside a table of middle-schoolers at the public library, set out a sheet of paper, and begin chewing the end of a pencil, proudly declaring, “I do my homewurt!”

But the real thing quickly disappointed us both. She found first grade’s nightly math worksheets excruciating, both uninteresting and difficult. I found pulling her away from pretend games for something that left her in tears excruciating, both undermining and cruel.

Our story is complex but not uncommon. Cathy Vatterott, a professor of education at the University of Missouri, St. Louis who’s better known as the “ Homework Lady ” says, “Parent activism about homework has really increased over the last 5 to 7 years.” Acton, Massachusetts librarian Amy Reimann says her daughter's district recently overhauled its policy. Now, no school issues homework before third grade , and it's not expected nightly until seventh. In 2017, Marion County, Florida eliminated all elementary homework aside from 20 minutes of reading (or being read to) at night. The result? After moving to a school with a no-homework policy in Berkeley, California, parent Allison Busch Zulawski said: “Our kids are happier, I’m happier, and there are no academic downsides.” If you're looking to make a similar change at your school, check out the stats you'll need to bolster your argument below, followed by some strategies you can use with your school's administration.

Is homework even beneficial to students? Arm yourself with the stats before you storm the school.

If you want to go in with the most effective arguments for changing your school's homework policy, you'll have to, um, do your homework (or use this cheat sheet).

Giving up homework in the younger grades has no academic impact.

There's a bit of disagreement among scholars over the academic value of homework. Duke professor Harris Cooper, Ph.D., who has studied the issue, says that the best studies show "consistent small positive effects." But others have questioned whether any impact of doing homework on tests scores and/or grades has been proven. And most academics seem to agree that what little bump homework gives doesn't start until middle school or later. What does all this mean? In his book The Homework Myth , writer and researcher Alfie Kohn concludes, “There is no evidence of any academic benefit from homework in elementary school."

There is clear evidence on a related point though: Reading self-selected material boosts literacy. That’s why many elementary schools are moving toward homework policies that require reading, or being read to, rather than problems or exercises. (Once kids get to middle and high school, the homework debate generally shifts to “how much” and “what kind” rather than “whether.”)

Many agree with educators like Linda Long, a fourth-grade teacher at a different San Francisco school, who sees the value in “just the act of taking a piece of paper home and bringing it back” for building organizational skills and responsibility. But Good Housekeeping was able to find no research demonstrating that this is the case at the elementary level prior to grade five. And research showing that doing homework increases conscientiousness in grades 5 through 8 appears to be thin. What’s more, the many children who don’t complete homework fastidiously have the opposite lesson reinforced: that duties can be ignored or completed hastily.

Homework is more harmful than helpful to families.

Long sees another upside of elementary homework, saying, “It helps families be aware of what their children are learning in the classroom.” Professor Cooper adds, "Homework can give parents an opportunity to express positive attitudes toward achievement."

But there are lots of ways for parents to do these things, from quarterly teacher updates like the ones Fairmount Elementary School instituted when eliminating homework, to parents sifting through the completed classwork that comes home in backpacks. And asking parents to police homework can damage family relationships by creating power struggles and resentment. In a September 2019 poll of approximately 800 parents conducted by the tech company Narbis, 65% reported that the stress of homework had negatively affected their family dynamic. Academic studies show that this family stress increases as homework load increases.

Homework can also have a negative impact on children’s attitudes toward school. Take the story of Sarah Bloomquist Greathouse of Felton, California. “My fourth-grader has always had such a hard time with liking school,” she says. “This year is the first year we have no worksheets or other busywork. This is the first year my son has actually enjoyed going to school.” As Vicki Abeles puts it in Beyond Measure , “Homework overload steals from young minds the desire to learn.”

Homework eats up time that could be spent doing something more beneficial.

For some students, time spent doing homework displaces after-school activities — like imaginative play, outdoor time, sibling bonding, physical activity, socializing, and reading purely for pleasure — that are shown to be neurologically and developmentally beneficial.

For others, homework provides important scaffolding for free time. (Long says, “I’m more inclined to give homework to my kids who I know just go home and are playing Fortnite for five hours.”) Some argue a no-homework policy leaves a void that only wealthier families can afford to fill with enrichment. That’s why a lot of parents are throwing their weight behind optional policies that provide homework but let families determine whether doing it will improve their child’s life.

Another important displacement concern is sleep. “If parents and teachers are worried about academics and behavior in school then they don’t need homework, they need sleep,” says Heather Shumaker of Traverse City, Michigan, author of It’s OK to Go Up The Slide: Renegade Rules for Raising Confident and Creative Kids , which covers banning homework in elementary school. "The more sleep kids get, the better their memory, the better their learning, the better their focus, the better they’ll do on all the tests, being able to control their impulses, and so on.”

What do you do if you don't agree with the amount of homework your kids get at school?

Don’t worry, you don’t have to be as annoying as me to change your situation. There are multiple ways to push back against homework, each suited to a different personality type. That said, we can all learn a little something from every take.

Introvert Parent

You'd like your child to have less homework, but you don't want to make a huge thing of it.

Rallier Parent

You've read the research, and you're ready to gather others and take the whole system down.

Conflict-Avoidant Parent

You're bad at confrontation, but you want your student's homework stress to be known.

Hands-off Parent

You don't think it's good for anyone when your kids' assignments become your homework.

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Some parents focus on winning an exception to the rule rather than challenging it. Teresa Douglas’s daughter read voraciously — until, that is, she was required to log her minutes in a daily time log. The Vancouver, British Columbia mom wrote the teacher a note explaining the situation, declaring her intent to excuse her daughter from doing homework, and offering to provide relevant research. “I received zero pushback,” she says. Pretty much the same thing happened for a Sacramento, California parent (who didn’t wish to be named due to her role in that state’s government). She told her sons’ teachers they would not be doing any homework, aside from reading, unless the teacher could provide research proving it beneficial. That was the end of that.

Straight-up refusal to comply is the same approach I’ve taken when asked to sign off on my kids’ work while my advocacy efforts were ongoing. I thought my signature would imply my child couldn’t be trusted, and I knew it would put us on course for the type of shared academic responsibility, and ultimately dependence, decried in How to Raise an Adult , a book by former Stanford University Dean of Freshmen Julie Lythcott-Haims. So every year, I emailed my kids’ teachers, explaining my reasoning and offering alternatives, like having my children put their own initials in that spot. Some teachers weren't pleased, and I have to admit my kids initially felt mortified, but I held firm and everyone wound up happy with the arrangement.

Critical, independent thinking is also what Kang Su Gatlin, a Seattle, Washington dad, is after. He gives his son the option to do school-assigned homework or exercises chosen by his parents. When the fifth-grader picks the school’s problems, he’s allowed to skip the ones drilling concepts he’s already mastered. “At least in the jobs I’ve had,” says Gatlin, who currently works for Microsoft, “it’s not just how you do your job, but also knowing what work isn't worth doing.”

Some worry that going this route will upset their child's teacher, and it's possible. But when Long was asked what she’d do if a parent presented her with research-backed arguments that disagree with her homework philosophy, she replied, “I would read it, and it would probably change my opinion. And I would also be flexible with the individual family.”

For the Rallier Parent: Gather Reinforcements and Tell Your PTA Why Students Should Have No Homework

Many parents don’t stop with their own child. When the first edition of Vatterott’s book Rethinking Homework was published in 2009, she says, it was a relatively fringe thing, but now, “We’re talking about a real movement.”

Shumaker, the Michigan author and one of the most prominent figures in the movement, knows initiating this kind of conversation with a teacher can be terrifying, so she recommends having company: “Maybe you want to bring in another parent in the class who feels similarly or who is even just willing to sit next to you,” she says. Or broach the subject in a group setting. Shumaker tells a story that reminds me of every back-to-school night I’ve ever attended: “One of the parents raised a hand and said, ‘My child is having such a hard time with math. She spends hours on it every night, and she can’t get through all the problems.’ There was this huge sigh of relief from all the other parents in the room, because they’d had the same problem.”

So, talk to other parents. Bring the issue to the PTA. For petitions, surveys, and templates you can use when writing to a teacher, reaching out to other parents, and commenting at PTA and school board meetings, see The Case Against Homework by Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish. It’s packed with step-by-step advocacy advice, including ideas for a variety of non-traditional homework policies (e.g., “No-Homework Wednesdays”).

For the Conflict-Avoidant Parent: Sometimes It Just Takes One Homework Question

If all this sounds like a bit much, Vatterott recommends an approach based on inquiry and information-sharing.

Begin by asking whether there's a fixed policy, either in the classroom or at the school. “You can’t believe how many schools have a policy that the teachers don't follow,” Vatterott notes. Often it’s one based on guidelines endorsed by the National Education Association: about 10 minutes per night in the first grade, and 10 more minutes added on for each successive grade (e.g., 20 minutes for second grade, 50 for fifth). “Sometimes all that’s needed is to say, ‘Can we make the homework requirement weekly rather than daily?’” she says.

Experts also recommend starting with what psychologists call “I statements,” because teachers aren’t mind-readers. Put a note on each assignment saying, “My child spent 40 minutes on this.” Since research shows teachers often underestimate the amount of time homework takes by about 50% , Vatterott reports, passing along this info can be enough to make assignments less onerous. Other simple statements of fact include:

• “Luna isn’t getting enough downtime in the afternoon."
• “Cynthia told me today, ‘I hate homework and I hate school.’”
• “Dante is losing sleep to finish his work.”

Try to find some way, Vatterott says, to not feel embarrassed or guilty about telling the teacher, even in a roundabout way, “This is too much.”

For the Hands-off Parent: Just Take Yourself Out of the Equation

Not everyone agrees on the level of parental involvement required in homework assignments. Reading all that research also taught me that intrinsic motivation is the more effective , longer-lasting kind. So during the years when I tried to get the school-wide policy changed, I also told my kids that homework is between them and their teacher. If they decided to do it, great; if they chose not to, the consequences were up to them to negotiate.

Third-grade mom Anna Gracia did the same thing, and her oldest, a third-grader, opted to take a pass on homework. When the teacher explained that the class had a star chart for homework with Gracia’s kid listed in last place, she asked whether her daughter seemed to mind. Her daughter didn't. Gracia asked if her daughter was behind in a particular subject or needed to practice certain skills. "No, but homework helps kids learn responsibility," the teacher replied. “How does it teach my kid that, if I’m the one who has to remind her to do it?” she asked. In the end, Gracia stayed out of it: “I said the teacher could take it up directly with my daughter, but I would not be having any conversations about homework at home unless she could point to a demonstrable need for her to do it.”

I’m happy to report my now fifth-grader takes complete ownership over her nightly "homewurt." And after the most recent round of parent-teacher conferences, neither her teacher nor Gracia’s daughter’s had any complaints.

Do the Research

ASCD Rethinking Homework

Harmony The Case Against Homework

Da Capo Press The Homework Myth

TarcherPerigee It's OK to Go Up the Slide

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Gail Cornwall is a former public school teacher and recovering lawyer who now works as a stay-at-home mom and writes about parenthood. Born in St. Louis and raised in the Bay Area, she’s a serial monogamist of urban living who resided in Berkeley, New York, DC, Boston, and Seattle before committing to San Francisco. You can find Gail on Facebook and Twitter, or read more at gailcornwall.com.

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DAP: Planning and Implementing an Engaging Curriculum to Achieve Meaningful Goals

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The curriculum consists of the plans for the learning experiences through which children acquire knowledge, skills, abilities, and understanding. Implementing a curriculum always yields outcomes of some kind—but which outcomes those are and how a program achieves them are critical. In developmentally appropriate practice, the curriculum helps young children achieve goals that are meaningful because they are culturally and linguistically responsive and developmentally and educationally significant. The curriculum does this through learning experiences that reflect what is known about young children in general and about each child in particular.

Learning through play is a central component of curriculum, and it incorporates strategies to extend learning through play across the full age and grade span of early education. Ideally, the curriculum is planned in a coordinated fashion across age and grade spans so that children’s knowledge and skills are developed in a coherent, aligned manner, with each age or grade span building on what was learned previously. A well-designed developmentally and culturally relevant curriculum avoids and counters cultural or individual bias or stereotypes and fosters a positive learning disposition in each area of the curriculum and in each child.

The idea of mirrors and windows 72  is useful for curriculum development. The curriculum should provide mirrors so that children see themselves, their families, and their communities reflected in the learning environment, materials, and activities. The curriculum should also provide windows on the world so that children learn about peoples, places, arts, sciences, and so on that they would otherwise not encounter. In diverse and inclusive learning communities, one child’s mirrors are another child’s windows, making for wonderful opportunities for collaborative learning.

Because children learn more in programs where there is a knowledge-rich, well-rounded curriculum that is well planned and implemented, it is important for every school and early childhood program to have its curriculum in written form. Having a written curriculum does not preclude the use of an emergent curriculum based on children’s interests and experiences that is also aligned with applicable early learning standards, and it provides an organized framework through which educators can ensure that the children’s learning experiences are consistent with the program’s goals for the children. Use of a formal, validated curriculum can be helpful, so long as educators have the flexibility to adapt units and activities to meet the interests and experiences of each group of specific children. Rigid, narrowly defined, skills-focused, and highly teacher-scripted curricula that do not provide flexibility for adapting to individual skills and interests are not developmentally appropriate.

The following key factors, taken together, describe curriculum planning that is developmentally appropriate for children from birth through the primary grades.

A. Desired goals that are important for young children’s development and learning in general and culturally and linguistically responsive to children in particular have been identified and clearly articulated.

• Educators consider what children are expected to know, understand, and be able to do when they leave the setting.  This includes across the domains of physical, social, emotional, linguistic, and cognitive development and across the subject or content areas, including language, literacy, mathematics, social studies, science, art, music, physical education, and health.
• Educators are thoroughly familiar with state early learning standards or other mandates.  They add to these other goals missing from the existing standards.
• Educators and administrators establish and regularly update goals with input from all stakeholders, including families. Goals are clearly defined for, communicated to, and understood by all stakeholders, including families.

B. The program has a comprehensive, effective curriculum that targets the identified goals across all domains of development and subject areas.

• Whether or not educators participated in the development of the curriculum, they familiarize themselves with it and consider its comprehensiveness in addressing all important goals.
• When the program uses published curriculum products, the selected products are developmentally, culturally, and linguistically responsive for the children served and provide flexibility for educators to make adaptations to meet the specific interests and learning needs of the children they are teaching.
• If educators develop the curriculum themselves, they make certain it targets identified learning goals and applicable early learning standards.  They actively engage families and communities to inform its development. Educators use up-to-date resources from experts to ensure that curriculum content is accurate and comprehensive.

C. Educators use the curriculum framework in their planning to make sure there is ample attention to important learning goals and to enhance the coherence of the overall experience for children.

• Educators are familiar with the understandings and skills in each domain (physical, social, emotional, linguistic, and cognitive) that are key for the children in their group.  They know how development and learning in one domain impacts the other domains and crosses subject areas. They recognize that making sure the curriculum is culturally and linguistically relevant for each child is essential for supporting all development and learning across all domains and subject areas.
• In their planning and follow-through, educators use the curriculum framework along with what they know (from their observation, documentation, and other assessment) about the children’s knowledge, interests, progress, languages, and learning needs.  They carefully shape and adapt the experiences to be responsive to each child and to enable each child to reach the goals outlined in the curriculum.
• In determining the sequence and pace of learning experiences, educators consider the learning progressions that children typically follow, including the typical sequences in which skills and concepts develop. To maximize language development, educators recognize differences in developmental progressions for monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual children and support the development of multilingualism. Educators use these progressions with an eye toward helping each child progress in all areas, and they make adaptations as needed for individual children. When children’s experiences have not matched the expectations for schooling, educators can both work to change inappropriate expectations and adapt the curriculum to build on children’s strengths and help them gain skills and knowledge. Such adaptations should maintain children’s agency; children can be partners with educators in guiding their learning, which reinforces high expectations and beliefs (on the part of both the child and the educator) in that child’s potential.

D. Educators make meaningful connections a priority in the learning experiences they provide each child.  They understand that all learners, and certainly young children, learn best when the concepts, language, and skills they encounter are related to things they know and care about, and when the new learnings are themselves interconnected in meaningful, coherent ways.

• Educators plan curriculum experiences that integrate children’s learning.  They integrate learning within and across developmental domains (physical, social, emotional, linguistic, and cognitive) and subject areas (including language, literacy, mathematics, social studies, science, art, music, physical education, and health).
• Educators plan curriculum experiences to build on the funds of knowledge of each child, family, and community in order to offer culturally and linguistically sustaining learning experiences.  Educators build on ideas and experiences that have meaning in the children’s lives and are likely to interest them, in recognition that developing and extending children’s interests is particularly important when children’s ability to focus their attention is in its early stages.
• Educators plan curriculum experiences that follow logical sequences and that allow for depth, focus, and revisiting concepts.  That is, learning sequences allow children to spend sustained time with a more select set of content areas rather than skimming briefly over a wide range of topics. Educators plan to return to experiences in ways that facilitate children’s memory and further understanding of concepts.

E. Educators collaborate with those teaching in the preceding and subsequent age groups or grade levels, sharing information about children and working to increase continuity and coherence across ages and grades.  They also work to protect the integrity and appropriateness of practices at each level. For example, educators advocate for continuity in the curriculum that is coherent, consistent, and based on the principles of developmentally appropriate practice.

F. Although it will vary across the age span, a planned and written curriculum is in place for all age groups.  Even if it is not called a curriculum, infant and toddler educators plan for the ways in which routines and experiences promote each child’s development and learning. With infants and toddlers, desired goals will focus heavily on fostering secure relationships with caregivers and family members in ways that are culturally and linguistically responsive. Although social, emotional, and language development—including home languages as much as possible—take center stage, these interactions and experiences are also laying the foundation for vocabulary and concepts that support later academic development across all subject areas. For preschool, kindergarten, and primary grades, the curriculum will deepen and extend to reflect children’s more complex knowledge and skills across all subject areas. Continuing to provide culturally and linguistically sustaining care and supporting all domains of development as well as all subject areas remain essential.

View the full list of endnotes.

Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) Position Statement