How Much Homework Is Healthy for Students? A Teacher’s Practical Perspective
Last Tuesday, I was stacking reading journals on my desk after the final bell when Mia, a 5th grader who usually bolts for the bus line before I finish dismissing class, lingered by my door twisting the frayed strap of her unicorn backpack. “Ms. Henderson,” she said, staring at her shoes, “can I skip math homework this week? My little sister has her first gymnastics recital Friday, so I have to drive to practice with my mom every night, and I still have to study for my science quiz. I don’t have time.”
I said yes before I even thought about it. As a 5th grade teacher and a mom to a 6th grader, I’ve heard this same line dozens of times in the last two years, from my own kid and my students. That night, I drove across town to pick Jax up from cross country practice, and he slumped into the passenger seat, pulled three worksheets and a book report outline out of his backpack, and sighed. “Two hours minimum,” he said. “Mrs. Lee says we have to get it all done by Thursday.”
That weekend, Jax turned down his best friend’s birthday barbecue to sit at our kitchen table and plow through that work. He ate chips for lunch, didn’t take a break longer than five minutes, and by 4 p.m. he had his head in his hands crying because he’d mixed up all his vocabulary flashcards. I sat down next to him, helped him sort them, and we threw the half-finished outline in his backpack and ordered pizza. That’s when I started really asking: how much is too much, anyway?
I’ve sat through enough district training to remember the widely supported guideline: 10 minutes of homework per grade level, per night. That means 5th graders get 50 minutes, 6th get 60, and so on, topping out around two hours for high schoolers. When I tell other parents that, most of them laugh, because their middle schooler is already getting an hour and a half or more every night.
It’s not that teachers are out to get kids, for the most part. I assigned too much homework myself early in my career, because I bought into the idea that more work equals more learning. I also had parents email me asking for extra assignments for their kid, because they wanted more rigor, so I added more to keep everyone happy. It took me a few years to see what too much homework actually does: it kills the joy of learning, it eats up the time kids need to play, hang out with family, or just be bored (which isn’t a bad thing, by the way). I’ve had kids who loved reading for fun in my class stop bringing in their own graphic novels and sports books because they have to do 30 minutes of assigned reading every night on top of three worksheets. They don’t have any energy left for reading they actually choose.
A little homework, though, isn’t a bad thing. I know a few schools that went fully no-homework a couple of years back, and the teachers I know there say they’ve seen a drop in basic skill retention, especially for math facts and spelling. Kids only have six hours a day in class, and a little consistent practice helps lock those skills in without taking over their whole evening.
Three years ago, I changed my own homework policy to stick close to that 10-minute rule. I assign 10 minutes of math skill practice (usually a game or a short worksheet, no more), 20 minutes of any reading kids want – comic books, recipe books, even the back of a cereal box counts, as long as they’re reading – and that’s it. Long-term projects get broken into tiny chunks, so kids never have more than 15 minutes of work on them a night. The first semester after I changed it, I was worried my principal would say something, or parents would complain. Instead, my students’ end-of-quarter test scores went up 6% compared to the year before, and twice as many kids come in on Monday excited to talk about what they read over the weekend.
For parents who are staring down two hours of homework every night with their kid, there are small, concrete things you can do that don’t turn into a big fight with the teacher. First, have your kid write down how long every assignment takes for three nights. Most teachers estimate how long work will take based on the average student, but we don’t actually track it. If your 5th grader is spending two hours a night on homework, a quick email with that three-day log is way more likely to get an adjustment than a vague complaint about too much work. Second, if the total is consistently over 10 minutes per grade level, you can give your kid permission to stop after hitting that maximum, and send a quick note to the teacher saying that. I’ve had dozens of parents do this with me, and I’ve never once marked a kid down for it. I’d rather they stop after 50 minutes than spend three hours stressed and hating school.
That night after Jax’s cross country practice, we ended up stopping for mint chocolate chip ice cream on the way home, because he told me his teacher had let the class work on homework during the extra study period that day, and he only had 20 minutes of math left. He finished it in 18 minutes, then played Roblox with his friend for an hour before bed, no tears, no stress.
I still don’t have the perfect answer for every kid – some kids want more homework to challenge them, some kids need more flexibility for their family’s schedule, and that’s okay. Right now, the line I’ve landed on is that homework should practice skills, not take over childhood. It’s not a perfect rule, but it’s working for me and my kids, for now.
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