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A Parent’s
Guide
to
Helping
Your Child
with
Homework
and Studying
Psychological Services 2006 ©
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................... 4
The Roots of Effective Homework and Studying......................................... 5
Why Do Homework?............................................................................................ 6
How Can a Parent Help?............................................................................. 7
Regularity is the Key................................................................................... 7
Be Involved................................................................................................... 8
Motivating Your Child................................................................................. 8
Provide Incentives........................................................................................ 9
Pace Your Child............................................................................................ 9
Too Much Homework? Not Enough?............................................................... 10
How Much Should I Help?........................................................................... 11
Studying: Making Information Meaningful................................................ 12
Paraphrasing Notes..................................................................................... 14
Visual Imagery............................................................................................. 15
Note Keeping and Active Studying............................................................. 17
Drawing ‘Maps’ to Learn Information........................................................ 19
Using Pictures and Diagrams..................................................................... 20
Reading for Understanding......................................................................... 21
Mnemonic Devices........................................................................................ 22
Self-Testing .................................................................................................. 23
Use ‘Study Plans’ ......................................................................................... 24
Reviewing School Materials........................................................................ 26
Preparing for Tests............................................................................................. 27
Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 29
Additional Reading...................................................................................... 30
Introduction
Probably most parents feel that there is more they can do to help their child
with homework and studying. We often remember strategies that helped
us when we were in school, but our explanations of them may be vague and
unconvincing. When children begin to bring home assignments and notes to
study for tests, many parents feel unsure as to their role in this process. In this
guide, we have attempted to provide parents with some tips, suggestions and
strategies for helping your child with homework and studying. Your interest
and encouragement are crucial in helping your child develop a personalized set
of skills that will be of benefit through a lifetime of learning.
Barry Jackson & Debra Moore
4
The Roots of Effective
Homework and Studying
Many parents are surprised to hear that the foundations of effective homework
and study habits occur before the child’s entrance to school. With preschool or
kindergarten age children, parents can build future work habits by encouraging
their child to: follow directions in games and chores, listen to stories, describe
what was heard, pay attention to details in pictures or sounds and try to
remember them, find objects on a page, play “concentration”, talk about
similarities and differences in pictures, buildings, cars, boats, colours, letters,
numbers, etc., express himself through movement, drawings, talking about T.V.
shows, pictures, books, etc.
Although these activities may seem far removed from your child studying Grade
6 History, they foster the development of a sense of order and purpose in your
child’s learning. These behaviours become the basis of classroom work habits
which will be stressed during your child’s school career.
It is clear that the average student does not develop effective homework and
study habits without direct training and encouragement from home and
school. Taking the time to share your child’s school experiences creates a
favourable atmosphere for working with your child. The routines in your home,
emphasis on the orderly use of space and time, and giving priority to learning
and schoolwork, all contribute to developing successful work habits. The
opportunities you provide to explore ideas, events and your environment show
your child that the process of learning itself can be satisfying. The time and
interest spent in listening to your child talk about school and his/her world can
lead to positive feelings about learning.
When parents start too late to take an interest in their child’s learning, the
parents’ offer of help are often seen as interference and hassling. This is
especially true if the parents have to force their child to replace
pleasurable, leisure activities (watching T.V., computer
games, playing sports) with homework
and studying.
5
Why Do Homework?
• Review increases remembering.
• Homework increases thinking and learning skills.
• Project work develops skills of finding, selecting,
organizing and presenting information.
• Practice makes perfect.
Research has shown
that the more homework
students complete,
especially in Grades 6
to 12, the better they do
in school.
6
How Can a Parent Help?
Parental attitudes towards homework have a directeffect on their child’s
attitude towards homework. By placing homework as a priority in their house,
parents are telling their children that education is a priority. By providing
encouragement, motivation anddiscipline, parents are setting the stage for
their children to become active, confident learners.
Regularity is the Key
Many families set aside the same time each evening where everyone has
something quiet to do, such as homework, studying, reading, writing, hobbies,
etc. During this time, T.V.’s, stereos and telephones are turned off. In order to
keep this routine in place, keep the “quiet time” set aside nightly, even if there
is no homework or studying to be done. Extra reading, flash cards or review of
notes can be done at this time.
The patterns of regular times and places for studying are resisted by most
students. Find a time of day where your child is more likely to put forth a
sustained effort. For many children, right after school may not be a good choice,
as they use this time to unwind and relax. The place for doing homework and
studying should be somewhere in the house where your child can be monitored
if they are young, with minimal distractions. Many families find the dining room
or kitchen table perfect for doing homework. As a particular time and place to
do schoolwork become associated with successful learning, your child will find it
easier to get into the habit of homework and studying.
7
Be Involved
Providing a conducive atmosphere is just the beginning. Parents need to
be available to monitor homework, by making sure their child understands
what is expected in the assignment, remains on-task and completes each
assignment. Depending on the age of your child, you can check the assignment
for neatness, mistakes and completeness. Make sure a box of supplies is always
readily available and contains items such as pencils, pens, erasers, markers,
calculator, paper, dictionary, glue, rulers, etc.
Motivating Your Child
Any behaviour that meets with encouragement and success is more likely
to be repeated. For many students, the payoffs for homework and studying
(good marks, job opportunities) are often too remote and unpredictable to
ensure regular review and study. Therefore, the most important ingredients
that parents can offer to their child’s education are an active interest, positive
attention and encouragement. “I know that math is difficult. Good for you
for sticking with it.”
Frequent criticism of your child’s school efforts either verbally (“your notes
are always such a mess”) or through facial expressions (if looks could kill…)
predictably produces a reluctance in your child to show you his/her work and
will eventually lead to disinterest and discouragement for both of you. Of
course, this does not mean that parents should not state their feelings that
their child should improve his/her school
performance, but there should be a
blend of constructive suggestions
and praise. Your child’s effort
and interest in school will
largely reflect the interest
you demonstrate in his/her
school work.
8
Provide Incentives
For most children (and adults!), homework and studying are not very pleasant
activities. Although we would like to think that learning should be its own
reward and that other incentives should be unnecessary, this expectation seems
to hold true for only a few tasks and assignments. Those subjects or topics that
we find personally interesting or where we have had success, usually require
little additional reward to encourage us to pursue them. For some tasks,
the only payoff may be the feeling of relief once it is out of the way. Unless
a student has experienced success and encouragement from homework and
studying, one should not expect that the student will view them as beneficial.
The basic principle that determines whether behaviours, including studying,
are increased is that any behaviour followed by a positive consequence or
reward will be more likely to recur. Apart from the encouragement and
attention that you can give your child for school effort, there are other
rewarding activities that you can offer. Following the completion of their
child’s studying, some parents allow their child to play a game, watch a T.V.
program, spend time working on a hobby, etc. The agreement is that “when
you have.. (completed some assignment), then you can... (take part in the
rewarding activity)”.
Some parents have reported success in developing a point system whereby
something that their child will work for (such as a hockey stick, model,
clothes, tickets to a movie, etc.) is earned by completing some predetermined
tasks. You and your child might discuss this approach and work out an
arrangement whereby a rewarding activity can be used to strengthen studying.
Your child’s effort to learn and study should be rewarded as well as the
actual accomplishment.
Pace Your Child
Make sure your child takes appropriate breaks. We know that approximately
thirty minutes is the optimal amount of time an adult spends learning, after
which time a short break should be taken. Don’t expect your child to spend
much more than ten or fifteen minutes (according to age) on homework or
studying without a small five-minute break to get up, walk around, and maybe
have something to eat or drink.
9
Too Much Homework?
Not Enough?
If younger students are assigned too much homework, it may lead to fatigue
and academic disinterest. These negative attitudes towards homework may lead
to avoidance of homework in the higher grades, when its benefit to achievement
is highest. As a general rule, the following chart should be a guideline for time
spent on homework at different grade levels.
Grade
Most Evenings
JK-K
up to 10 minutes
Grade 1-3
10-20 minutes
Grade 4-6
20-40 minutes
Grade 7-8
30-60 minutes
Grade 9-10
60-120 minutes
Grade 11-12
90-180 minutes
(from Durham District School Board, Homework Guidelines, Procedure #6020)
In the early grades, homework could mean being read to and reading aloud. If
you feel that your child has too much homework, contact your child’s teacher
for a discussion. Ask if the school has a homework
policy. Ask questions such as “Will homework be
marked?”, “Are there incentives/consequences
for complete incomplete homework?”, “How will
I know if my child has homework?”, “As
a parent, how can I help at home?”
Your child’s teacher will welcome
your interest and involvement.
10
How Much Should I Help?
The desire to help your child with his/her homework is strong. The challenge
is to know the difference between helping your child understand and doing it
for him/her. It is very easy to start with help and end with doing, especially if
your child sits back and lets you “do the thinking”. Ideally, all homework should
be done by your child. Your involvement should be to check answers, call out
spelling words, answer simple questions. If your child experiences difficulty
with understanding, a simple explanation from you may suffice. If your child
still does not understand, direct them to resources that may help, such as
the internet, calling a friend from the same class, seeing the teacher before/
after school, this way, you are helping your child learn how to solve their own
learning difficulties without depending on you to do it for them. By monitoring
your child’s homework, you will become familiar with how your child learns.
Does he/she need to see pictures or drawings to understand concepts? Or does
he/she need real-life examples, such as cutting up an apple to understand
fractions? Does he/she benefit from less talking and more doing? As you come
to understand your child’s learning style, you will experience more satisfaction
and less frustration when helping your child.
If your child continues to have
difficulty understanding their
homework assignments,
make an appointment
to talk with the teacher.
11
Studying
Making information meaningful Is the key to learning
When asked to describe how they study, many students will respond that they
“read my notes over and over”. The assumption is that the more time they
spend studying, the better they will know what they are studying. In other
words, they think that learning and remembering must increase with the
number of times one reads one’s notes. This assumption is misleading and often
results in information once thought ‘learned’ being quickly forgotten at test
time. For students who study this way, it is doubtful if the information was ever
learned in the first place.
Read the three lists of words and choose the list you would prefer to remember
if you were to be tested on just one list:
12
List 1
List 2
List 3
cabin
tep
people
devour
fis
remember
enter
mek
more
field
rof
effectively
sample
zul
when
complex
lor
they
obtain
cuy
understand
fraud
vib
what
right
deg
they
labour
gai
have
iceman
hib
to
house
muz
learn
12 words
66 letters
12 words
36 letters
12 words
66 letters
Although List 2 contains the fewest letters (36), most people would agree that
it would be the most difficult to learn since it does not contain ‘real’ words. List
1 and List 3 contain ‘real’ words, but List 3 would probably be the easiest to
learn as the words are arranged in an order that makes them easy to learn and
remember. We call information that makes sense to us meaningful, and many
years of research into how people learn has demonstrated that information
that is meaningful is learned more quickly and is remembered longer than
information that doesn’t make sense or is difficult to understand. For many
students, the notes they read over and over again may as well look like List
2. If the information they are reading is not meaningful to them, they should
not be surprised that learning occurs with difficulty and uncertainty, and that
information cannot be recalled during a test.
This basic, yet very important influence upon learning, provides the foundation
upon which many strategies in this booklet are based. The strategies will be
aimed at providing different ways of making what a student studies more
meaningful.
13
Paraphrasing Notes
One of the most effective ways parents can help their child study is to make the
child’s notes more meaningful by asking questions such as “tell me about this
note in your own words”, “what does this remind you of” or “teach this note to
me”. This transfer of note material into one’s own words is called paraphrasing
and may initially be difficult for some students. If paraphrasing an entire note
at once is too difficult, have your child paraphrase just a paragraph, or even a
sentence. Parents can also help make information more meaningful by helping
their child form associations between what she is learning and what she
already knows. For example, if discussing the parts of a fish, ask your child to
find the similarities between the structure of a fish and the structure of a boat.
Satellites, natural and man-made, can be discussed using the popular television
dishes as an example of how satellites operate. The key to this approach is
having your child talk about the information using his/her own words, rather
than quoting from their notes verbatim.
• Ask your child to tell you about the note using his
own words.
• Talk about the note by relating it to what your
child already knows.
• Check for understanding!
14
Visual Imagery
Many of us can recall times when we formed pictures in our mind to aid our
understanding of what we were reading or what someone was saying. This
skill is called ‘visual imagery’. It is a skill we take for granted, and often may
not even realize that we are creating these pictures while reading or listening.
Research, however, has shown that visual imagery is one of the most powerful
strategies we use to make information more meaningful.
Attempt to make a visual image while reading the following paragraph:
As I walked towards the midway,
different sensations surrounded me.
Sounds of laughter, screams from the rides
and shouting from the barkers filled my ears.
The wildly riotous colours, and shapes
of the rides and games in constant motion
beckoned me. All this was tied together
with the rich aromas of popcorn,
cotton candy and hot dogs.
Ask yourself the following questions:
• What colours do you see in your
visual image?
• Did you imagine a particular place
that you know?
• Are there any people in your picture?
• Can you describe them?
This is an example of how we can examine
the visual pictures we make.
15
Visual Imagery Cont’d
Parents can guide their children to better understanding and remembering of
what is being learned by asking them to make visual pictures. First, encourage
your child to describe to you the images he has
developed while reading his note. Make your
own visual pictures of your child’s note, then
compare your picture with your child’s
picture. When you are quizzing your child
on what has been learned, ask him to
think of the visual picture that was formed
to help recall the information. Students
who can recall visual images during a
test are often able to find the needed
information in these pictures.
•Visual images increase meaningfulness of
information.
•Start by having your child describe visual images
of favourite TV shows and books.
•Ask your child to read one paragraph of notes,
create a visual image, then describe it to you.
16
Note Keeping and
Active Studying
The main purpose of school notes is to have a source from which review can take
place at a later time. The student whose notes are incomplete is handicapped
by not having sufficient information from which to learn. At the same time, the
student who keeps neat, well-organized and complete notes will obtain little
benefit from them if they are not used for studying and preparing for tests.
REDUCE
Main Ideas, key
phrases and facts
from the RECORD
section are written
here. This information
is learned so as to
provide cues for the
note in the RECORD
section.
RECORD
The note to be learned is
kept in this section.
1. The note is RECORDed in the larger page. The actual note may be copied from
the blackboard, a textbook, written from the teacher’s oral presentation or be a
handout or copy of the teacher’s notes.
2. The second step involves taking just the key words and phrases from the RECORD
section, (thus REDUCEing the information) and writing it in the REDUCE page
(usually just a piece of paper cut length-wise, inserted opposite the note).
3. The third step is RECALL . The student covers the RECORD area and by using cues
from the REDUCE page attempts to recall the information in the RECORD area.
Any personal associations, ideas or feelings that can make the information
more meaningful should be included in the REDUCE section. Some students
find it helpful to draw pictures or diagrams in the REDUCE section to help them
think about and understand the material. The student should take the extra few
minutes to review and test himself/herself on the material as soon after learning
as possible, followed by regular studying and retesting.
17
Note Keeping and
Active Studying Cont’d
Regardless of how a student’s notes are physically arranged, it is the steps in
the “3R” system that is valuable in helping to learn the information. Parents
can assist their children by encouraging them to keep complete notes on their
subjects. Where gaps are evident, the student can ask classmates or the teacher
for the missing information.
As well as seeing that notes are complete and up-to-date, parents can assist
their children in identifying key words and phrases for the REDUCE section.
When using notes to test your children on what they have learned, focus
your questions towards testing for understanding, as well as for recall of
details. For example, ask ‘Why did the people of Newfoundland decide to join
Confederation?’ as well as ‘What year did Newfoundland become a Canadian
province?
R
educe
ecord
ecall
• Provide your child with REDUCE pages.
• Help your child choose key words and phrases for the REDUCE page.
• Have your child cover the note in the RECORD section, and using the
REDUCE page, try to RECALL the meaning of the note.
18
Drawing ‘Maps’
to Learn Information
A different form of learning and remembering information is a strategy called
‘mapping’. A map is a ‘picture’ or ‘flowchart’ that summarizes information and
shows how its parts are related to each other. The first step in developing a map
is to identify the main idea. Additional points are then chosen and organized to
show their relationship to the main idea.
Read the following paragraph and then examine how it is mapped:
On March 18, 1925, three black clouds of dust and cold wind
roared and swirled for many miles across Missouri, Illinois and
Indiana. The clouds were shaped like thin funnels, or ice-cream
cones. They curved from high in the air down to the ground. After
travelling these many miles, the swirling dust and roaring noise
died down. But in the three mid-western states, 689 people had
been killed, and 2,000 people had been hurt in one day. Sixteen and
one-half million dollars worth of property, building, land, tools
and clothes had been destroyed. Three tornadoes or ‘twisters’ had
hit those mid-western states.
Property
Effects
People
Date
Drawing good maps requires practice and you can help your child by seeing that:
Location
Shape
Tornado
1. main ideas have been identified
2. the organization of the map is accurate
3. the entire note is not ‘rewritten’ in a map
Upon completing the map, your child can cover the note and use the map to test himself on understanding and recall of the note material.
• Identify main idea.
• Identify supporting ideas.
• Draw lines or circles to show the relationships between ideas.
19
Using Pictures and Diagrams
The contribution of pictures and diagrams to aid learning and recall has been
supported by research. If students use accurate pictures, they can be worth
thousands of words when it comes to learning. For example, if a student has a
passage to learn, it would probably help if she could “draw a picture about what
you have read”. Some subjects and topics (for example, science and geography)
are more conducive to drawing pictures and diagrams, however with a little
practice, your child will find that she can draw pictures and diagrams about
most study areas and themes. The drawings should be studied and learned in
the same way as the written information, with your child making sure to test
himself/herself on the drawings. When it comes to answering questions about
information learned through diagrams, they should be drawn again to help aid
recall. Pictures and diagrams can be drawn in the REDUCE section of a note to
be a permanent aid for future studying.
•Think of the note in terms of
pictures or diagrams.
•Draw them in the REDUCE
section.
20
Reading for Understanding
In order to get the most out of reading, it is essential to know how the
information is to be used. Scanning a page for a particular name or date calls
for a very different approach from the one used when information is to be
remembered. Thus, an important starting point before reading is to
identify the purpose or goal of the reading.
•Decide on the purpose of reading.
•Write question marks on the page to
stop and ask ‘what have I read?’
Have you ever read an article and gotten to the bottom of it only to realize
that you didn’t really understand or remember much of it? If a student has
determined that information from the reading is to be remembered, there
are some strategies that should be used. First, it is necessary that the reader
regularly reminds himself that he is reading to remember. This can be carried
out by the student frequently stopping and asking himself “what have I read?”
The student can cue himself to stop for self-testing by drawing small question
marks intermittently throughout the note. These question marks then signal
the student to stop and check for understanding. If the self-testing does not
produce the correct answer, the material should be re-read and re-tested.
21
Mnemonic Devices
(pronounced Nee-mon-ik)
“Never eat shredded wheat”
(for North, East, South, West)
“Thirty days hath September, April, June and November...”
“A piece of pie”, “a principal is a pal”
(for sequence of letters)
“Mary’s violet eyes made John stand up near Pluto”
(names of the planets in order from the sun out)
These are mnemonic devices and they help in providing cues for remembering
information that does not seem very meaningful. Obviously all information
cannot be stored by using mnemonics, but when used selectively, they can
be effective. Lists of words or names, dates and rules can be learned through
mnemonic devices. You can help your child ‘invent’ a mnemonic by taking the
first letter of a series of words to be memorized, and make a word or sentence
with them. Sometimes, the more vivid the sentence that cues the information
to be remembered, the easier it is learned. If you notice that your child has
material to remember that should be memorized, try this method.
•Take the first letter of each
word to form a new word or
sentence.
•Mnemonics should cue
information that needs to
be memorized.
22
Self-Testing
As mentioned throughout this booklet, very often the student who reports that
she ‘forgot’ the material at test time, did not know it sufficiently at the time
of studying and was unaware that learning did not occur at that time. Part of
the problem comes from the student not checking or testing what was learned
while studying.
•Encourage your child to stop and ask
questions to check for understanding.
•Be available to help your child check
for understanding.
Successful students tell us that they know when they have learned and
remembered information, and that they know when they have not learned
and remembered information.
Let’s say that your child has to learn the contents of five pages of science for a
test. Hopefully, he/ she would have begun studying a few nights before the test
and thereby spaced his/her learning and reviewing. He/she should be taking
a few extra minutes to (1) ask himself/herself “what am I learning?” as he/she
covers the main points, or (2) answer questions that you ask from the notes.
It is not essential for you to understand everything in your child’s notes in order
to help.
Your task is to compare your child’s description of the information with what
is in the notes. Unless your child takes the time to test herself/himself or have
you test him/her, your child will likely forget some information at test time. The
importance of this testing during the studying results in showing the student
what was learned and what must be relearned.
For some students, this testing step can present frustrations and upset, likely
because it tells them that they have more work to do. Your role in encouraging
successful learning at this stage is important, and the praise and positive
attention you show will help.
23
Using ‘Study Plans’
The most common measure of studying is the passage of time, such as “I’ll
read my history notes for twenty minutes” or “I’ll study math for half an hour”.
One difficulty with expressing studying in minutes or hours is that seventeen
of the twenty minutes spent studying history could be spent daydreaming,
doodling, etc.
But when the twenty minutes are up, we feel as if we’ve accomplished our
goal. Although we might know how much time will be spent on each subject,
we do not know (1) what we will be learning, and (2) whether or not we have
actually accomplished any learning. The uncertainty of what we have achieved
during a study period creates considerable discouragement for many students.
Oftentimes, students are heard to complain that “I can’t understand it. I
spent two hours last night studying for that exam, but when I sat down
to write it today and my mind went blank”. Many students who start
studying with enthusiasm become disheartened when they discover that little
has been accomplished. It is easy to see how this leads to students giving up
studying because “it doesn’t help me learn”.
A better method of describing studying activities is through ‘study plans’ which
spell out the actual study activity (what your child will do) and how a student
can know if learning has been accomplished.
So, instead of saying “study my science notes for half an hour”, a study plan
could be “I’ll learn the main points about pollination, draw a diagram, and then
ask myself questions on what I have learned”. At first, it seems time consuming
to set these goals, but gradually your child will see that time is actually saved
by spending less time, more productively.
24
Read the examples of study plans listed below, and notice how each plan is
described as study action plus testing for learning.
1. Read one science experiment and describe it to my brother so that he can
understand it.
2. Learn my spelling list and have it dictated to me. Misspelled words will be
relearned and dictated.
3. Read four pages of geography notes and write out the main points.
4. Read three pages of history and test myself by asking questions about what I am reading.
Your contribution could be to ask your child “what are you going to learn?” as
he/she begins an assignment, then being available to help in the checking or
testing of what has been accomplished.
It is important for your child to end studying on a successful
note, so it is preferable to set a few, challenging
study plans rather than too many that cannot
be achieved.
25
Reviewing School Material
Once school material has been presented and learned, forgetting will naturally
occur unless the information is reviewed and recalled by the student. Research
has shown that reviewing material within 24 hours after learning will
substantially improve remembering.
It is important that a student review material regularly (even if there is not
an upcoming test) and then space these reviews over time. For example, a
student may have to learn a page of geography notes and spend a total of
twenty minutes the night before a test attempting to memorize the page. The
information would be learned at a higher level of recall if the student invested
three five-minute periods spread out during the week before the test. Each
five-minute study block would be used to read over the note, then RECALL and
REVIEW the information. Each review session should end with the student
testing himself or being quizzed by someone else on what has been covered.
Once a regular review period becomes part of a child’s study schedule, the
student will find that he gets much better results from studying.
•Have your child review notes regularly.
•Space the reviews over time.
•End each review with self-testing.
26
Preparing for Tests
It is natural and sometimes desirable that people get nervous and anxious
when they are being judged on something that is important to them. Thus it
is appropriate that your child experiences a moderate amount of tension when
writing a test. Probably the most effective way of coping with this tension comes
from active and thorough preparation at test time. Research has shown that
the more a student works on study strategies and rehearses for test, the less
anxiety is felt about being tested. To the extent that good work habits allow a
student to know that she knows the school work, she will feel more confident
and calm about the test.
Since worrying can increase at test time, it is important that students plan
and minimize the number of things they have to worry about. Last minute
scrambling for notes, pens, rulers, etc. and having to rush to a test create
needless anxiety. A good night’s rest and a proper meal before a test are
necessary for most students.
Some practices that will likely assist your child at test time include:
1. Read the directions for questions carefully so you understand what you are
expected to do with each question.
2. On the back of your test page (once the test has begun) write down any
mnemonics or draw any maps you created.
3. If any of the questions are essay type, carefully read all of them and jot
down any information that you might forget before picking a question to
answer.
4. Budget your time so you know how much time to spend on any question.
5. Answer the easy questions first.
6. Use your visual images to help you remember.
7. If you don’t know the answer or get stuck on an objective question (truefalse, fill in the blank), go on to the next one and then come back when
you have answered all the ones that you do know.
8. Write neatly, check for spelling and punctuation.
9. Reread your answers. Do they make sense?
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Conclusion
For the student whose homework and study behaviours are inadequate,
the information in this guide will likely be seen as overwhelming and
disheartening. Rather than trying to change homework and study habits
overnight, it would be better to gradually introduce one strategy at a time.
For example, you may want to try establishing a nightly homework time and
routine for the whole house. You might want to contact your child’s teacher and
ask for specific ways you can help your child.
With regard to study strategies, it might help if you assisted your child by
having him/her review material by creating visual images of what he/she
is reading, for example. Once this was carried out effectively, an additional
strategy could be tried. Try to pick strategies that match your child’s learning
style. While teaching any strategy, make sure your child understands how the
strategy works, when to use it, and the strategy’s potential value as a tool that
will increase the meaningfulness of information so that it will be easier to learn
and remember longer. Encourage your child to continue using those strategies
that he/she prefers and finds effective. With encouragement and success, your
child will arrive at the point of consistently applying these methods and find
school learning to be a rewarding process.
• Show you think education and homework are important.
• Set a regular time for homework.
• Check your child’s work.
• Be available for ‘self-testing’.
• Talk with the school if problems arise.
• Provide incentives and positive feedback.
• Choose and teach only one or two study strategies at a time.
• Ask your child to monitor strategy use by seeing if it is making a
difference to his learning and remembering of information.
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Additional Reading
Cognitive Strategy Instruction that Really Improves Academic
Performance by Michael Pressley and Associates. 1990 Cambridge:
Brookline Books
Helping your Child with Homework by Nancy Paulu. 1995 Office of
Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education
Homework - Its Importance to Student Achievement by Joel S. Turvey.
NASSP Bulletin, February, 1986
Homework without Tears by Lee Canter and Lee Hauser. 1987 New York:
Harper & Row.
How to Help Your Child with Homework by Marguerite C. Radencich and
Jeanne Shay Schumm. 1988 Minneapolis: Free Spirit Publishing Inc.
Teaching Study Strategies to Students with Learning Disabilities
by Stephen S. Strichart and Charles T. Mangrum II. 1993 Needham Heights:
Allyn and Bacon
Teaching Test - Taking Skills: Helping Students Show What They Know
by Thomas E. Scruggs and Margo A. Mastropieri. 1992 Cambridge:
Brookline Books
What Smart Students Know by Adam Robinson. 1993 Three Rivers Press
Study Skills to Support Learning by Virginia Smith Harvey. NASP
Communiqué, Vol. 32, #3, November 2003
Relationships among Attitudes about Homework, Amount of
Homework Assigned and Completed and Student Achievement by
Cooper, Harris; Lindsay, James J.; Nye, Barbara; Greathouse, Scott Journal of
Educational Psychology. 1998 Mar Vol 90 (1) 70-83
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Notes
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Thank You
Special thanks to
Dr. Barry Jackson
Without his guidance,
feedback and encouragement,
this booklet would not have been written.
Debra Moore
February, 2006
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