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Homework Tips

Homework accounts for one fifth of the time that successful students are engaged in academic tasks. So many children both in regular and special education classes have homework problems. What is needed are some coping skills to deal with their homework woes from time to time. The main problem lies in the fact that the teacher assigns the tasks to be completed at home in an environment over which she has no control. We all recognize that aspects of family life influence students’ homework outcomes. Homework is a unique opportunity for you to share in your child’s success in school, personal growth and future learning. It is a chance for you to participate on a daily basis and to let your children know that you care and believe in their potential.

Your child’s ability to be successful with homework assignments begins with the value you place upon responsibility, effort and hard work. Success also requires helping your child develop essential homework strategies and developing a working alliance with your child and his teachers. Completing homework assignments is a challenge to say the least for both students and parents. It doesn’t have to be a frightening experience if you have a plan.

Homework has been a part of the U.S. education since the beginning of the nineteenth century. What is the role of homework in your children’s learning process? Teachers sometimes depend on it to complete unfinished class work, give additional practice and most importantly to keep parents informed of their children’s progress. Teachers and parents believe that doing homework helps students take responsibility for themselves and develops personal management skills. If you are like most parents, you feel mixed emotions about homework. Even in well functioning families under ideal circumstances, homework can be one of the biggest contributors to a parent-child crisis. If you are like most parents, you feel a mixture of emotions about homework. Some of them are positive but many of them unpleasant. You can turn these negative feelings into positive ones by following these proven approaches and methods.

1. Adapting the Home Physical Environment Is Foremost in Establishing Homework Success.

• Choose an appropriate place
  Where homework will be done (desk in the child’s room, at the kitchen table, quiet corner in the family room) is as important to its successful completion as the academic skills needed. A designated homework area provides the framework for an environment that will reduce poor organizational habits and procrastination.
• Gain consensus
  All family members must first come to an agreement on the value of homework. Set a certain place and time for assignments to be done without distractions (pets, video games, television, friends). Gaining this consensus establishes an atmosphere conducive to sustained effort.
• Develop a routine
  Consistency is a vital element in learning processes especially for the child who needs structure. A set homework time helps in establishing the value of homework by putting it on your regular schedule and sticking to it. This customary schedule over time becomes a habit – “just the way we do things around here” and is not questioned or argued about. Frustration, annoyance, boredom, confusion and even anger are the many negative emotions, you as well as your children, express when it comes to homework. Most of us did not like homework when we were kids and probably don’t like it any better as parents but it is a fact of life! The sooner we adjust our attitude and the homework environment the closer we come to school – work satisfaction.

• Create a homework checklist
  Design a homework checklist or poster that is easily accessible and in clear view in the designated “homework place”. Answers to the following questions will give a quick review as to the quality and the thoroughness of homework assignments. Refer to it before, during and after an assignment is complete:
  • Is your name on the paper?
  • Did you follow all the directions?
  • Is your work neat and your handwriting readable?
  • Does each sentence begin with a capital letter?
  • Do other important words need capital letters?
  • Does each sentence end with the correct punctuation?
  • Is each word spelled correctly?
  • Is each sentence a complete thought?

This strategy may seem a bit cumbersome, at first. Yes, it will take some extra time but in no time at all, it will become second nature and part of the learning process your children will come to rely on. How quickly you’ll see results. In just a few minutes every week you’ll power up your kid’s potential, sharpen their skills, and help them stay ahead of the homework game.

• Put up a DO NOT DISTURB sign.
  Your children can decorate it as they wish. Hang it up in a prominent spot where all can see. This visual cue emphasizes the seriousness and importance of the task at hand.
• Supply a HOMEWORK SURVIVAL KIT.
  Fill the kit with desk supplies. Have it in the “homework place” ready and waiting at your child’s fingertips.

2. Identify Tasks That Your Child Can Do Independently.

The manner in which you will check over the completed work also needs to be established. After the independent assignments are finished help your child tackle that work that needs your assistance. Not everyone works equally well with a particular child. If neither parent or older brothers or sisters can work effectively with your child then perhaps a tutor is needed. It is important for all concerned that the relationship established during the “homework time” should be given strong consideration.

• Do easiest work first.
  Start with the work that your child can do independently. This will build confidence and set the tone for the particular homework session.
• Use association.
  Address the non-mastered skills assignments by associating the material with something that is known: “If you can spell book, try to spell cook – just change the first letter.” or “2,000 lbs. = 1 ton; a compact car weighs about 2,000 lbs.” Use math knowledge to solve real life problems: “How much gas did we use on our last car trip?” “What percent of our weekly food money goes to snacks?” or “Think of a candy bar divided in 6 pieces. Would you like to have 1 of the 6 pieces (1/6) of it or 5 pieces (5/6)? Apply the relationships of problems like these to the skills needed to complete the assignment.

Be in close proximity to your children while they’re doing their homework even if they chose to do it alone. Some children will need a parent sitting right next to them. Some will need you to read over the directions with them. Make sure that they understand and follow them. You wouldn’t believe how many homework assignments are done wrong and turned into the teacher without their parent’s signature on them. Student’s assignments are usually done wrong not because the child lacks skills but because of distractions, other priorities or just passive involvement at best. As your child gets more proficient at the “homework game” your proximity to him may be lessened gradually, as he becomes more confident in his own abilities.

• Set goals for homework completion
  Set goals and use a clock or timer to help your youngster to develop a sense of timeliness for required tasks. Encourage your child to take responsibility for his homework. Don’t allow yourself to get trapped in lengthy discussions or arguments.

3. Give Direction and Guidance for More Difficult Tasks

When your youngster doesn’t seem to grasp a concept when the solution is so apparent to you, frustration mounts. If this happens to you, try some of these tips:

• Separate text from graphics.
  Direct your child to look over pictures, charts or graphs before reading. Visual cues give information that is needed to answer questions without sometimes reading the text first.
• Use analogies
  When doing math problems, make up a short list of steps to help remember all the procedures that need to be done in order. e. g. when working with division problems write DMSB or Dad, Mother, Sister, Brother on top of the paper to remember the steps in long division problems: Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Bring Down.

If the tug of wills during homework involves “normal stress” for you, tell yourself what you tell your children about homework: “It is just something you have to do”. However, if it is truly negatively affecting your parent/child relationship, it’s time to get yourself out of the mix and seek some help. Some suggestions that work for parents are using a neighbor, high school student or a paid tutor that offers homework support. You and your child will be the better and happier for it if you can’t seem to work well together.

• Reverse Roles.
  Try reversing roles when doing homework. Play the role of the student and have your child play the role of the teacher. Explaining concepts to others is one of the best ways of learning concepts.

4. Accept Responses as Genuine Effort. We all don’t work on full capacity 24/7. Your child, who appears to be lazy may be just tired from a busy day. Poor handwriting may be the result of having no lines on the paper or perhaps not enough space for the answer. If your young one is tired or frustrated by the length of the assignment you could alternate reading paragraphs on the page with him. In math or spelling assignments alternate working on math problems. Say to your child: “You do the odd numbered problems and I’ll do the even numbered ones. We’ll be done in no time at all.”

• Adapt and Modify Homework Processes and Procedures
  Be creative! The benefits of adapting and modifying homework procedures far out weigh disciplining your child. Keep the tempo upbeat. Remember the goal of homework is to fine tune skills by practice. New approaches offer fresh alternatives for learning and growth. Even young kids come up with novel and original observations. They should be encouraged to be imaginative and adventuresome in their thinking and to express themselves in their own words. Nothing could be more discouraging to a small child than to come to a parent with some discovery or revelation, only to be met by indifference. When young children bring you questions or want to share their insights, listen with interest. You need not applaud every idea or even agree with it, but you should treat your independent thinker with genuine respect.
• Express Affirmation for Diligence. Let your children know what you think of their effort and hard work for diligence and creativity during a homework session. Give affirmations such as: “Your ideas in this paragraph show lots of imagination.” or “You really stuck with it. You finished it so quickly! You did a great job!

5. Focus on the Goal of the Assignment

Often a social studies or science homework activities can turn into a remedial reading lesson. Keep in mind the focus of the assignment and do not let poor skills in reading, spelling and math interfere with the intended goal of the lesson. By telling your child an unknown word or numeral, you are permitting your youngster to gain knowledge or locate an answer rather than teaching reading mechanics. In this way, you are fostering a possible liking for social studies and science rather than a dislike of reading.

“I can’t concentrate!” It’s a familiar cry heard in households around the world whenever kids are doing their homework. Some days it is very difficult to concentrate. You may just not be in the mood to study. Or maybe it is a certain topic that you have difficulty concentrating on. Whatever the reason, there are some steps you can take to help you concentrate.

• Tackle your toughest project first. If you have homework to do in Biology and Algebra, which you love, and History, which you hate, do the History homework first. Your mind will be fresher and you’ll get through it quicker.
• If you keep having the urge to get a snack, then get one together first, before you start studying. But that is the only snack you get until you’re done. You’d be amazed at how much time you can waste going back and forth to the fridge.
• Remove any other distractions. Turn off the TV; go into another room if people are talking, tell your little brother to quit banging on your door. And don’t take any phone calls until you are through.
• Try to do your homework early in the day. If you wait until just before bedtime, not only will you be rushed, but your brain will be tired out at the end of the day.
• Finally, don’t bother procrastinating. Your homework won’t get done by itself, so you may as well make up your mind to sit down and do it. Once you’re done, you’ll be free to get on with other things.

As you near the end of another semester, may become increasingly difficult to stay focused on class assignments. After all, the weather is nicer outdoors, and daydreaming about that upcoming long vacation is all too easy. So, here are some strategies to help you down the home stretch:

• Make sure you have a set place and time for doing homework. Otherwise you’ll find yourself putting it off until you’ve run out of time.
• Also, set aside some time for other activities. You do have time to exercise, go to a movie, or talk on the phone to your friends, so go ahead. Just don’t let it take up all day.
• If you find your books are a clutter of scribbled notes and loose pages tucked into books, take the time to organize it all. This will be time well spent, and will save you time in the long run as you won’t be searching for anything.
• Depending on what course level you are in, you may have some important exams coming up. Divide your study time up into more manageable chunks. Study for twenty minutes per day for the next couple of weeks, for example, instead of three hours a night for the last few nights before the exam.
• If you are struggling in any subjects, see if your instructor can sit down with you and discuss what needs to be done. If you think a tutor could help you, get one.
• Finally, if you need more motivation, talk to some other students online in a Homework and Study Tips chat room!

Do you really want to get better grades? Then take the extra time to work on the presentation of your assignments. Content is still the most important, but try to approach the papers you write as if they were resumes for a job. You want them to look good, and be easy to read. Any assignment you write, be it an essay, a research paper, a report, or any other type of paper, should be proofread thoroughly before you hand it in. Proofreading does not mean simply skimming through what you have written one last time on the school bus. It means revising what you have written to make it better.

1.        Avoid waiting until the last minute to finish your report. If you can, finish it two or three days before it is due. Then set it aside for a day so that when you proofread, you are approaching it with a fresh perspective.

2.        Check it all carefully for spelling errors. If it is written on a computer, use your spell checker, but also check it manually. Spell checkers only tell you if the word you used is not a correct spelling, not if you have used the proper spelling of the word (for example: there, their, and they’re). If you’re unsure of the spelling, look it up in a dictionary.

3.        Check the report for grammatical errors. Again, some programs will check your grammar, but you should also do a manual check.

4.        Read the entire paper through out loud. This is a test of the “flow” of the words. By reading it out loud, you can tell if some paragraphs are too choppy, or if some things come out sounding awkward.

5.        Get a parent or friend to read it over. Another person can often pick out mistakes that the report writer would have missed.

For some people, homework and studying are things they need help with, one on one help from a qualified source. Such people are often surprised at how much progress they can make with a tutor. Read on, and see if a tutor could be what you need.

First you need to understand what a tutor does. Generally speaking, a tutor will coach you in the subjects you need help in, giving you extra explanations or working through assignments with you. They are not there to do the work for you, but to guide you. The Learning Center offers students two free hours of tutoring sessions.

There are other people, of course, who may be willing to take the place of a tutor. Your parents or older siblings, if they have the time, knowledge, and patience, are ideal. However, that combination of qualities is sometimes hard to come by.

A good friend can also be a free, or at least cheap, source of tutoring help. Be careful here, though. First, your friend has to be capable of explaining concepts to you which he or she may be just learning as well. Also, if the friend is really close, there is a tendency to spend valuable study time talking about other things.

Private tutors can be hired for the term of the semester, for summer vacation, or for a short term while you learn a new concept or prepare for a big exam. They can provide a fresh approach if you are finding your instructor doesn’t explain things in a manner you can understand. Many people have been impressed with the results a tutor can help them attain. Do you think you need a tutor?

The Internet can be a very useful homework tool, but searching for information can also be time consuming and frustrating. You will use a tool called a search engine to carry out these searches, but knowing how they work can go a long way towards finding what you want.

There are many different search engines you can use, and many of them work in slightly different ways. So, if you search for “dinosaur teeth” for example, you may find different web sites using one search engine than you would doing the same search using another search engine. Some of the most popular search engines include Google, Dogpile, Lycos, and Yahoo!

When you do a search, you can search for one word (ex. dinosaur), a phrase, which must be put in quotations (ex. “dinosaur teeth”), or two or more words which describe what you are looking for but are not necessarily a phrase, which must have a + sign between them (ex. dinosaur+teeth). Since all search engines work differently, it is worthwhile to click on the help button before you so a search to find out what shortcuts you can take using that particular search engine. In some cases, a search for image:tooth will give you all pages that have an image titled tooth on it.

Different search engines also index pages in a different way. Some search for words and phrases within the website itself, others use the keywords the site’s author has put in, while others are categorized into certain subject areas. It is important to note that much of the way a website appears to a search engine, then, is dependant on what the site’s author wrote. Using our previous example, if the search engine in question uses keywords to catalogue websites, is it likely that you would find it under “teeth of a dinosaur”, “dinosaur fossil teeth”, or dinosaur+teeth?

If all this makes you feel like it would be impossible to find the information you need, why not let somebody else do the hard work for you? About has guides working in hundreds of different topic areas who have already sifted through the many websites out there to find those which are the most fun and which contain the most information. You can simply go to their Net Links section and not bother with the search engines and their many different methods of doing things. Whether you are looking for information on celebrity news or country music or figure skating or something totally different, this may be the place to keep you from wasting so much time.

If you are a regular visitor to this site, you probably gather information from a variety of web sites to help with your homework. If you use that information to write reports, you also need to add the web sites to your bibliography. This leads to the question of “How do I do that?” Obviously, web sites are not in the same format as books, but you need to be as thorough as possible in listing the sites.

The general format which should be used to cite web sites in a bibliography is as follows:
Author’s Name (last name, then first name)
Author’s Email Address
“Title of Web Page”
Internet Address
Date, if available

For example, this would be the bibliography citation for the Strange Science site:
Scott, Michon
mscott@ecentral.com
“Strange Science”

http://www.strangescience.net/

This would be the bibliography citation for The Magic School Bus Activity Lab site:
Scholastic, Inc.
msbfun@scholastic.com
“The Magic School Bus Activity Lab”

http://place.scholastic.com/magicschoolbus/games/index.htm

Web sites can come and go overnight, so gather the information you need, then write down the details of the site itself for your bibliography. If these details are not all listed on the site there are two steps you should take. First, if there is an email link, send them a message telling them you are using the information contained in their site for researching a school report and ask them to send you the missing details. If there is no email link, or if they don’t respond, you will have to just include the details you do have.

Finally, a word of caution. Be careful when researching on the Internet. There are some wonderful sites out there with loads of information, but there are others which are filled with inaccuracies and falsehoods. Make sure you double-check facts which you pull from web sites.

Source : http://www.wvup.edu/academics/tips_on_homework.htm

Elementary Homework Tips

Homework should not be a battle. Here are some steps you can take to encourage your elementary-age child to take responsibility for his own homework assignments.

Remove distractions – Do homework in a quiet place that does not have distractions. Turn off the TV; don’t expect your child to do homework in a room where siblings are playing.

Source : http://www.teachersandfamilies.com/open/homewk-el.cfm

Establish a routine – Set a specific “homework time” such as right after supper. Require that homework be complete before your child can watch TV, use the phone, etc.

Prioritize – Encourage your child to work first on those assignments that are due tomorrow. Then tackle the tasks that are due later. Help your child plan his studying so that projects are not left until the last minute. An assignment book can be a big help with this.

Check understanding – Be sure your child understands new assignments before he or she starts working on them. This one can save lots of late-evening tears!

Guide, but don’t correct – If your child needs help, offer ideas that can help her sort out the problem, but don’t give her the answers.

Get organized for tomorrow – Remind your child to pack the backpack before going to bed. Even the best homework effort doesn’t do much good if it’s left on the kitchen table!