Longmeadow Elementary Schools Homework Guiding Principles 2017-2018

The fundamental goal of our guiding principles is to promote a consistent and

meaningful district-wide approach to homework that is guided by professional
literature, current research, teachers input and family input. Importantly, the guiding
principles reflect what we, as a community of learners, value to be most beneficial to our
students as growing learners and citizens. All homework will deepen understanding and
encourage a love of and curiosity for learning.

Longmeadow elementary school educators value strong partnerships with our families.
We encourage family involvement and school connectedness. Our guiding principles
strive to balance the needs of parents, families, and our students.

We acknowledge the importance of play and free time for a childs growth and
development, and while homework is important, it should not prevent children from
taking part in a wide range of out-of-school experiences and sharing critical time with
family and friends.

Reading
Reading at home is prioritized as a way to instill and develop a love of literature; and
to grow our students into lifelong readers. The amount of free reading accomplished
outside of school has consistently been found to relate to growth in vocabulary,
reading comprehension, verbal fluency, and general information.

Teacher Responsibilities are:

To prioritize reading at home on a nightly basis.
To foster a love of reading in their students by allowing them to choose whatever
materials or genres they enjoy.
To develop ways for students to share their reading with their learning
community.
To recommend a certain number of minutes for nightly reading, but additional
time on reading is encouraged and applauded.
To model and share their own love of reading with students.

Student Responsibilities are:

To read at home daily.
To choose a variety of reading texts that you enjoy throughout the school year.
To share your reading with classroom community and family as guided by the
teacher.
To read the number of minutes recommended by your teacher, but reading
beyond is encouraged and applauded.

Family Responsibilities are:

To become familiar with the guiding principles.
 To ensure your children have time each day to devote to reading in a comfortable,
quiet space.
To encourage your children to share their reading daily with family members
through discussion, book choice, shared reading, or read alouds.
To model and share your own love of reading with your children.

Fluency Practice
Sometimes students need to do the same kind of work repeatedly to develop
automaticity. This is true when it comes to fluency with math facts and sight words.

Teacher Responsibilities are:

To assess and assign fluency practice as needed.
To teach and provide strategies to practice fluency task.
To help students understand the need to practice repeatedly and in short periods
to reach proficiency.

Student Responsibilities are:

To practice tasks as assigned by teacher.
To strive for proficiency with task(s).

Family Responsibilities are:

To ensure your children have time each day to practice assigned task.
To practice tasks with your children using resources available from teachers and
interventionists.
To inform teacher of any concerns/challenges with tasks.
To check for fluency practice and information through classroom
communication.

Review/Study
Students need to review/study for assessments as they move up in grades.

Teacher Responsibilities are:

To ensure that review/study can be completed independently by student(s).
To teach and provide strategies to review/study for assessments.
To schedule assessments in a manner that does not overwhelm students.

Student Responsibilities are:

To review/study for assessments.

Family Responsibilities are:

To ensure your children have time to review/study for an upcoming assessment.
To review/study with your children as needed.
To inform teacher of any concerns/challenges with tasks.
To check for upcoming assessments and information through classroom
communication.
Creative Endeavors
Projects relating to curriculum are occasionally assigned.

Teacher Responsibilities are:

To prioritize goals of creativity, curriculum extension, independence and time
management.
To provide the guidelines for the project when the project is assigned.
To develop established checkpoints for long term assignments.
To be mindful that project assignments and due dates not infringe on school
vacations and weekends.
To be mindful that students should have only one project assigned at any given
time.

Student Responsibilities are:

To follow the guidelines for the project when the project is assigned.
To follow established checkpoints for long term assignments.
To complete the project independently with minimal help from family members,
seeking clarification from teacher as needed.

Family Responsibilities are:

To facilitate project completion and time management rather than help with
project content.