Throughout the incredible diversity of public and private schools in our state, one constant that most every school aged child can count on, is the necessity of homework on a regular basis. But what is homework, essential practice for academic mastery or mindless busy work? In this month’s column, we will take a look at what the research suggests, and provide some strategies to make homework more manageable in your home.

Recent studies suggest that at the high school level, homework provides clear benefits for academic achievement. More modest benefits are seen at the junior high level, and the benefit of homework at the elementary level is questionable. However, most teachers agree that doing homework also teaches other important skills and habits, beyond the simple practice of the material. Homework helps children learn how to plan and organize tasks, manage time, make choices, and problem solve, all skills that contribute to effective functioning in the adult world of work and families.

Whatever the age of the child, there are certain things that we, as educators and parents can do to improve the effectiveness of assigned homework:

• Experts suggest that as a general rule of thumb is that children do 10 minutes of homework for each grade level. Thus, a second grade student would be expected to work for about 20 minutes on home work. Keep in mind that these are general guidelines. Not every child works at the same rate and occasionally working for longer (or shorter) periods of time will not be detrimental.

• Set up your home as a “homework friendly” place. Try to structure your child’s home environment, and time schedule, in a way that is conducive to homework. Create a nightly homework routine. The following suggestions are from the online resource Homework: A Guide for Parents, by Peg Dawson, EdD

Step 1. Find a location in the house where homework will be done. The right location will depend on your child and the culture of your family. Some children do best at a desk in their bedroom. It is a quiet location, away from the hubbub of family noise. Other children become too distracted by the things they keep in their bedroom and do better at a place removed from those distractions, like the dining room table. Some children need to work by themselves. Others need to have parents nearby to help keep them on task and to answer questions when problems arise. Ask your child where the best place is to work. Both you and your child need to discuss pros and cons of different settings to arrive at a mutually agreed upon location.

Step 2. Set up a homework center. Once you and your child have identified a location, fix it up as a home office/homework center. Make sure there is a clear workspace large enough to set out all the materials necessary for completing assignments. Outfit the homework center with the kinds of supplies your child is most likely to need, such as pencils, pens, colored markers, rulers, scissors, a dictionary and thesaurus, graph paper, construction paper, glue and cellophane tape, lined paper, a calculator, spell checker, and, depending on the age and needs of your child, a computer or laptop. If the homework center is a place that will be used for other things (such as the dining room table), then your child can keep the supplies in a portable crate or bin. If possible, the homework center should include a bulletin board that can hold a monthly calendar on which your child can keep track of long-term assignments. Allowing children some leeway in decorating the homework center can help them feel at home there, but you should be careful that it does not become too cluttered with distracting materials.

Step 3. Establish a homework time. Your child should get in the habit of doing homework at the same time every day. The time may vary depending on the individual child. Some children need a break right after school to get some exercise and have a snack. Others need to start homework while they are still in a school mode (i.e., right after school when there is still some momentum left from getting through the day). In general, it may be best to get homework done either before dinner or as early in the evening as the child can tolerate. The later it gets, the more tired the child becomes and the more slowly the homework gets done. For high school students, it is best that they begin their work by no later than 9:00 pm.

Step 4. Establish a daily homework schedule. In general, at least into middle school, the homework session should begin with your sitting down with your child and drawing up a homework schedule. You should review all the assignments and make sure your child understands them and has all the necessary materials. Ask your child to estimate how long it will take to complete each assignment. Then ask when each assignment will get started. If your child needs help with any assignment, then this should be determined at the beginning so that the start times can take into account parent availability. A Daily Homework Planner is included at the end of this handout and contains a place for identifying when breaks may be taken and what rewards may be earned.

• Develop an incentive system. Many children who are not motivated by the enjoyment of doing homework are motivated by the high grade they hope to earn as a result of doing a quality job. Thus, the grade is an incentive, motivating the child to do homework with care and in a timely manner. For children who are not motivated by grades, parents will need to look for other rewards to help them get through their nightly chores.

Step 1. Describe the problem behaviors. Parents and children decide which behaviors are causing problems at homework time. For some children putting homework off to the last minute is the problem; for others, it is forgetting materials or neglecting to write down assignments. Still others rush through their work and make careless mistakes, while others dawdle over assignments; taking hours to complete what should take only a few minutes. It is important to be as specific as possible when describing the problem behaviors. The problem behavior should be described as behaviors that can be seen or heard; for instance, complains about homework or rushes through homework, making many mistakes are better descriptors than has a bad attitude or is lazy.

Step 2. Set a goal. Usually the goal relates directly to the problem behavior. For instance, if not writing down assignments is the problem, the goal might be: "Joe will write down his assignments in his assignment book for every class."

Step 3. Decide on possible rewards and penalties. Homework incentive systems work best when children have a menu of rewards to choose from, since no single reward will be attractive for long. We recommend a point system in which points can be earned for the goal behaviors and traded in for the reward the child wants to earn. The bigger the reward, the more points the child will need to earn it. The menu should include both larger, more expensive rewards that may take a week or a month to earn and smaller, inexpensive rewards that can be earned daily. It may also be necessary to build penalties into the system. This is usually the loss of a privilege (such as the chance to watch a favorite TV show or the chance to talk on the telephone to a friend).

Once the system is up and running, and if you find your child is earning more penalties than rewards, then the program needs to be revised so that your child can be more successful. Usually when this kind of system fails, we think of it as a design failure rather than the failure of the child to respond to rewards. It may be a good idea if you are having difficulty designing a system that works to consult a specialist, such as a school psychologist or counselor, for assistance.

Step 4. Write a homework contract. The contract should say exactly what the child agrees to do and exactly what the parents' roles and responsibilities will be. When the contract is in place, it should reduce some of the tension parents and kids often experience around homework. For instance, if part of the contract is that the child will earn a point for not complaining about homework, then if the child does complain; this should not be cause for a battle between parent and child: the child simply does not earn that point. Parents should also be sure to praise their children for following the contract. It will be important for parents to agree to a contract they can live with; that is, avoiding penalties they are either unable or unwilling to impose (e.g., if both parents work and are not at home, they cannot monitor whether a child is beginning homework right after school, so an alternative contract may need to be written).

We have found that it is a rare incentive system that works the first time. Parents should expect to try it out and redesign it to work the kinks out. Eventually, once the child is used to doing the behaviors specified in the contract, the contract can be rewritten to work on another problem behavior. Your child over time may be willing to drop the use of an incentive system altogether. This is often a long-term goal, however, and you should be ready to write a new contract if your child slips back to bad habits once a system is dropped.

Adaptations and Further Support

Suggestions provided in this handout will need to be adapted to the particular age of your child. Greater supervision and involvement on the part of parents is the norm with children during the elementary school years, while, by high school, most parents find they can pull back and let their children take more control over homework schedules. Middle school is often the turning point, and parents will need to make decisions about how involved to be in homework based on the developmental level of their children. If problems arise that seem intractable at any age, consult your child's teacher or a school psychologist.

Resources

Canter, L. (1993). Homework without tears. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN: 0062731327.

Dawson, P. (2001). Homework problems and solutions. Unpublished manual. For information on obtaining a copy, contact Peg Dawson at her email address (Please be aware that e-mail addresses may change): pegdawson@comcast.net

Dawson, P., & Guare, R. (2003). Executive skills in children and adolescents: A practical guide to assessment and interventions. New York: Guilford. ISBN: 1572309288.

Romain, T., & Verdick, E. (1997). How to do homework without throwing up. Minneapolis: Free Spirit Publishing. ISBN: 1575420112.

Click here to download the homework planner and incentive sheet.

Peg Dawson, EdD, NCSP, is a school psychologist with the Center for Learning Attention Disorders of the Seacoast Mental Health Center in Portsmouth, NH, and a past president of the National Association of School Psychologists.

*The full text of Ms. Dawson’s article is available online at www.naspweb.org

Please feel free to contact Joel Bartholomay, School Psychologist at:

Battle Lake Public School
864-5215
jbartholomay@battlelake.k12.mn.us