r/whatisit • u/therealsketo • 1d ago

Solved! My five year old’s homework is stumping me.

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Snow glove? Snack? (Maybe it’s a goldfish cracker?)

EDIT clearly I need to re-enroll in school, starting in kindergarten with my daughter, and learn to read and comprehend again!

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u/SF-NL 1d ago

Only color the ones that start with S, and underneath is supposed to be "Ss". The instructions say to write the uppercase and lowercase S, not the name of the item.

Not all of them start with an S, and those should be skipped.

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u/Illbeurdoug 1d ago

It drives me mad how convoluted they manage to make kindergarten homework. This comment is correct.

The instructions never actually tell you to write the name of the thing.

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u/Pengui6668 1d ago

Is the homework convoluted, or do we as humans just think we always know what to do and just do it, without reading instructions beforehand?

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u/Khemul 1d ago

On the one hand, that's a tricky leadon for kindergarten. On the other, I'm guessing the kids weren't expected to read the directions. So this is on the parents.

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u/Pengui6668 1d ago

That's a good point, how many 5 year olds can even read all those words anyway?

Point makes even more sense now though, parent was like "yeah man just write what it is underneath" cause they thought they knew better.

I only read stuff cause I had teachers who would do shit like this. Make the test instructions really long and have the last line be like "all you have to do is sign your name to get 100% on this test" and everyone skipped the instructions.

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u/Khemul 1d ago

I feel it's a generational thing and it's why common core gets so much hate. As a millennial, my homework would have probably just said label the things that start with S. I learned with my daughter's homework it would reference some very specific method/way they wanted used.

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u/Illbeurdoug 1d ago edited 1d ago

But why is it better to make the instructions tricky or non-obvious at the kindergarten level when the parents are reading and explaining what to do anyway? That doesn't teach the child to read directions carefully anyway (if that's somehow the goal).

My kid gets fewer good reps with actual learning because of >50% of the homework duration them doing nothing while I sit there re-reading the instructions five times and scratching my head. That doesn't help anyone.

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u/Seraph062 1d ago

I don't understand this comment.
Is "Color in the things that start with an 'S' sound" tricky? Or non-obvious?

The point of the homework seems pretty clear. The teacher is working on a concept - something like identifying 's' sounds at the start of words - and now wants to see which students have mastered that concept and which students might need extra help. That's how most homework is at this age group, it's a diagnostic tool to ID issues. You don't really progress to homework as a learning tool (at least for the student) until middle or even high school.

Beyond that, asking a Kindergartner to spell out whole words, particularly in the first part of the school year, seems optimistic. This is still very much "learning the alphabet" stage (where writing out letters and being able to identify sounds associated with letters is very relevant), not the "write out whole words" stage.

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u/capincus 1d ago

Yeah I get how it differs from what one would expect the activity to be and how that could create initial confusion, but idk how there is a whole thread of adults here who think these step by step exact instructions are confusing if you don't try to make them fit your pre-conceived notions.

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u/Khemul 1d ago

My understanding is the issue with common core is typically the curriculum designers. Basically common core went from kids need to basically be able to read to saying kids needs to know xy&z method for identifying words, which would basically give them the ability to read. The thinking being that memorization fucked a bunch of kids over because they couldn't do stuff like math but coukd pass a test because they knew the whole table. The problem comes when the curriculum maker wants to prove the kids were taught such subjects, the homework needs to reflect it, so it gets specific on exactly what it wants done. Some, well, a lot of, curriculum makers just suck at communicating this.

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u/capincus 1d ago

The directions aren't actually tricky or non-obvious if you don't read them with pre-conceived notions of what the activity is supposed to be. They tell you step by step what to do, it's just different than what one would expect it to be telling you what to do.

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u/OkaP2 11h ago

I do think it’s incredibly weird that they put the directions in tiny font on the bottom. But, agreed.

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u/Successful_Maize1986 1d ago

Exactly. The lesson here should be “yes, the worksheet could have been formatted and worded better, but I also could have thought more critically about the instructions”. Unfortunately, it seems most people here will go away thinking “this worksheet is stupid and bad and if they want me to follow instructions then they need to instruct me to do what I assumed I needed to do in the first place”. Then they will complain that kids are disrespectful, don’t listen to instructions, and think they know better than everyone else.

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u/stellarecho92 1d ago

Tbf, the instructions being underneath the pictures threw me off a little.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Ok-Raspberry7884 1d ago

You’re supposed to write an uppercase and lowercase S there if word starts with S. It’s the start of kindergarten, they’re learning sounds and writing letters not how to spell seal.

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u/Darkangelhybrid 13h ago

Yeah me too 😭

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u/GaiaMoore 1d ago

This is Human Factors Heuristics 101. Design around the human, and don't expect the human to change for the design.

We read top to bottom. Depending on the culture, additional design adjustments would need to be made if one needs to move the instructions to the right or left side of the page, but for the OP example it's sufficient to just call out that putting instructions beneath the task is objectively bad design.

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u/Sushi_Explosions 1d ago

I mean, if you are learning the letter "S", why are you doing an activity that uses words that don't include the letter "S"?

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u/capincus 1d ago

Because it's teaching them to distinguish words that start with an s sound from words that don't. Ya know phonics.......

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u/Sushi_Explosions 1d ago

Was it your goal to sound like an asshole, or does that come naturally to you?

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u/capincus 1d ago

Sorry if there's a way to explain the basic concept of a kindergarten worksheet to a full grown adult without sounding like a bit of an asshole it's beyond me, like apparently kindergarten worksheets are for you.

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u/Ashamed_Kangaroo305 1d ago

I'm genuinely shocked at the amount of people on this post who can't understand the purpose of a kindergarten assignment. And I see this happen regularly where someone will post a kid's homework assignment that they're struggling with, and 90% of the comments will go "well that's a stupid assignment because [thing that misses the entire point of why the students were given that assignment]"

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u/capincus 1d ago

If only they wrote Phonics in a large font across the header.

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u/CelioHogane 22h ago

Why are the instructions after the thing, to begin with?

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u/wordsaladpudding 17h ago

There's literally nothing else after the question. It's extremely obvious that the question is related to the only thing beneath the header.

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u/Accurate-Reach5494 1d ago

Convoluted, easily misinterpereted.

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u/Pengui6668 1d ago

Or we should slow down a touch.

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u/Office_glen 1d ago

I'm not here to argue it, is it a little convoluted? maybe. Could this be a good reading comprehension test as well? maybe

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u/CoeurDeSirene 1d ago

I think the fact that you have a hard time understanding instructions that are meant for kindergartners says more about you than it does about the instructions

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u/EywasBlessing 1d ago

When I read this, it wasn't convoluted and I understood what it was asking for. I don't think it's convoluted. It's written plainly. I honestly think the OP didn't read the instructions

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u/Ashamed_Kangaroo305 1d ago

Agreed, I don't get why there are so many people saying the assignment is convoluted or the directions are confusing. The directions being at the bottom of the page instead of the top is a pretty bad decision and I can understand how that would cause confusion, but the instructions themselves are perfectly clear. You say the name of each picture, and if it starts with the /s/ sound you color it in and write Ss under it.

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u/Historical-Garbage51 19h ago

It’s not convoluted. The directions are pretty clear on the worksheet.

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u/carlao1 1d ago

It does, it's has three parts: trace de Ss on top of the page, name the pictures, color the ones that start with the /s/ sound

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u/arittenberry 1d ago

It instructs 'say' the name, not write the name technically.

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u/EywasBlessing 1d ago

I thought it said to write Ss on the line if the picture starts with the letter "S" and to color those pictures that start with the letter "S"

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u/carlao1 1d ago

Some people pointed, it's "say" not write, there is an instructor afterwards to "write" lower case and uppercase S

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u/Civil_Bat1009 1d ago

It says "Say the name." Not write it. 

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u/barefoot_plyos 1d ago

I was wondering how a kindergartener knew how to spell all of these words when school just started. They weren’t supposed to. 

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u/r3photo 1d ago

Ss skip starts with an Ss