IEP Will Help Struggling Student

School has been a struggle for my fifth-grader since way back in first grade. He was just diagnosed at the start of the year with a learning and cognitive disorder. The child has lots of homework most nights. There are nights when he works for two hours. How much time should a child of this age be spending on homework? I'm afraid that he'll get a negative attitude toward school. - Overworked
Answer: Hopefully now that your son has a specific diagnosis, you will soon meet with the Individual Education Plan (IEP) team at the school to develop a plan that will put in place supports so he will be able to get his work done in a reasonable amount of time. When you go to this meeting, you must insist that these accommodations are part of his plan. If your son already has an IEP in place, you will need to notify the team that you require another meeting to make adaptations to the plan.
As a rule of thumb, children should have no more than 10 minutes of homework for every year that they are in school. This means that, on average, your child should be doing approximately 50 minutes of work each night. Of course, there will be times when he works for less time, and other times when he has to work for more. Two hours of homework every night could certainly kill his enthusiasm for school. At the same time, you must realize that a struggling student might need to do more work to catch up. When your son begins to succeed more in school, it will really boost his attitude toward school.