Homework Assistance Program in After-School:
Nuts and Bolts
Presented by
Kathleen Martinez Ph.D.
Creative Out-of School Learning
Contact: Kat@hypersurf.com
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Workshop Agenda
Workshop Overview: Parents and Teachers and Homework, Oh My!
This workshop will provide strategies and tools for helping students succeed in school, including
working with parents, communicating with school-day teachers, and effectively helping
participants with their homework. The workshop will also provide suggestions for what to do
when students finish (or do not have) homework.
Participant Objectives:
By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:
 design a homework assistance program that takes into consideration
o your goals
o its structure
o providing a supportive environment for participants
o communication with parents and school
o motivating participants
 establish independent LA/Math Learning Centers with activities that participants can do
that reinforce academic skills
Activities:
-
Icebreaker/Group Warm-up activity: Making Words
Overview of the Workshop and Participant Objectives
Nuts and Bolts of an Afterschool Homework Center
Break
Finished with Homework! Now What? - LA/Math Independent Learning Centers
Creating your Action Plan!
Reflection/Closing activity: Triad Share - One thing you will do differently
Workshop Evaluation
Action Plan
What I Need to Do:
With Who?
By When?
In Conclusion
Take a minute to reflect: What important things were covered in this workshop? What did
you learn or what was reinforced for you today? Share out.
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Nuts and Bolts of Homework Assistance Centers in
School Based After- School Programs
Kathleen Martinez, Ph.D.
Creative Out of School Learning
Homework assistance programs are an integral part of almost all after-school programs. The
regular day school staff is asking the after-school staff to help assure that the children in their
classes finish their assignments. Frenzied parents, often too busy making a living, depend on the
after-school program to help their children finish their homework so there is some chance of a
family life when everyone gets home. After-school staff must make decisions on how to develop
a program that meets the needs of everyone, but is realistic in relation to the resources and
expertise of their program. To begin planning your homework assistance program, you need to
think about the following questions.
What are the goals of your homework assistance program?
Although every site must determine its own goals, the following areas should be taken into
consideration. How will the goals of your program
 Help families to meet their responsibility to see that homework is completed,
 Increase school success, and
 Offer opportunities to develop a sense of responsibility and organization?
When thinking about the family and school expectations, care must be taken to define the
extent that the after-school program will be responsible for homework completion. The staff
should be very clear whether they will be accountable for the participants finishing their
homework during program time, or whether they will only be responsible for providing the time
and support for participants to work on their homework. Whatever the decision, the staff should
clearly communicate with the family. Some programs use homework contracts that the family,
participant and after-school staff sign to assure clarity about expectations.
The after-school program staff needs to decide the extent that it wants to
 Provide the opportunity and support for the participants to complete their homework, not just
to work on it,
 Provide opportunities to reinforce specific skills,
 Provide opportunities for direct instruction in skills/academic areas, and
 Provide opportunities to apply skills to new situations.
Each of these different opportunities requires a different level of expertise, time and staff.
Providing direct instruction and opportunities to apply skills in new situations require a high
level of mastery of the academic skills and the ability to teach them appropriately. Usually, the
ability to assist in such skill development requires extensive training. Before committing the
program to providing these opportunities, make sure you have the appropriate staff. Many
programs hire classroom teachers to serve as tutors or instructors in the homework centers to
meet these goals. It is probably unrealistic to expect youth care workers who have no teaching
experience or training to provide such instruction. Just like the need to communicate the degree
to which the program will be accountable for homework completion, the staff of the homework
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assistance program should be clear on the level of skill reinforcement and instruction it will
undertake.
When asked about the goals for assigning homework, most teachers will say that it is not
only to reinforce academic skills, it is also to increase responsibility, self-initiative and social
skills. These types of goals can be stated in the following way:
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Increasing confidence in the ability to achieve,
Increasing the ability to set goals
Increasing organizational skills, and
Increasing social skills by working with peers to finish assignments.
If the staff of the homework assistance program wants to foster these skills, then the program
design must reflect them. If you want the participants to be responsible for their learning, goal
setting should be an integral part of the homework assistance program. Assisting participants to
keep track their assignments and turning them in on time should also be part of the program.
Helping participants in these areas require more work on the part of the after-school staff then
just providing a time, space and resources to do homework. However, if done appropriately, the
lessons learned might be more important then the mere completion of assignments.
Once the goals of the program are determined, other decisions have to be made that reflect
the goals.
How should you group your participants for homework assistance time?
There are different ways you can group participants in your homework center.
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You can have them all in one group, with staff members moving around helping individuals
as the needs arise. However, if you have a large number of participants, this method makes
accountability and development of group cohesiveness difficult.
You can group them according to grade level. This system allows children who are assigned
the same task to help each other, and lowers the number of teachers that have to be contacted
by individual staff members. It also lessens the number of activities that the staff member
needs to have available because he or she does not have to take into consideration different
age and interest levels.
You can group them family style with grades mixed. This structure allows for buddy
tutoring with the older children helping the younger ones. It also decreases the “school” like
atmosphere of the after-school program by changing the classroom style dynamics.
After you decide how to group your participants, then you have to decide where you are going
to hold the activities?
 You can have groups, either grade or family style, each in a different room. This structure
usually is quieter, and possibly allows participants to concentrate better. However, if you’re
program is being held in a school site, this system requires good relations with the school day
staff since you will be probably using their rooms. Also, sharing of supplemental materials is
more difficult. Each staff member will need to be competent in all subject areas since there
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will probably be no one else for the participants to ask for help about their assignments in
self-contained areas.
Having the program housed in a central space such as the school cafeteria or multi-use room
provides the opposite strengths and supports. The noise level is usually very high, and if the
tables cannot be separated from each other, there is difficulty in maintaining the groups.
However, all the supplemental material can be centrally located and staff members can help
each other by taking advantage of their different strengths. For example, one staff member
who is good in math could be available for answering math questions for all participants.
Of course, you can combine the structures. You can have the younger children each in their
own room, and the older children who might need more support by specialists in one larger
room.
How do you create a caring and supportive environment that provides the
participants a space to do their homework after a long day of school?
Make them feel welcome – Have greeters at the door. If the homework
assistance program is going to be in a shared space, clearly mark the different groups’ stations.
Use check–in to find out how much homework they have. Provide a snack before they start
homework.
Establish a group identity – Have each group choose a name for themselves and a design a
symbol for their group. Use the name and symbol to mark the homework stations.
Develop strategies for getting participants to work together – Strategies, such as the
development of group and individual goals for homework completion, buddy checking and
group completion contracts, all help develop an environment where participants are both
responsible for their own efforts and supportive of each other’s accomplishments.
Establish and reinforce “agreements” – The participants should clearly understand what is
expected of them during the homework assistance time. Work with them to establish these
expectations, post them and refer to them often. Types of agreements that need to made include
 Where they should sit
 What they should do after finishing their homework
 What they should do if they do not have any homework
 How their homework will be checked
 If and when they can work together on assignments
Track work and attendance – Have some kind of system that the adults and participants can use
to track their homework completion. A monitoring system is important to help participants see if
they are meeting their goals. It also helps the staff to be able to communicate with parents and
teachers about the participant’s homework efforts. Each participant should have a folder in
which they can keep track of
 how much homework they have completed,
 goals that they set for themselves,
 days when they do not have any homework, and
 activities that they can do if they finish their homework.
Make sure there are abundant and age appropriate quiet activities for the participants when they
finish their homework, and a system for them to access these activities. The activities should
continue to reinforce academic competency. A reading center can be developed with beanbags
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and portable shelving even in a shared space. Materials such as worksheets and games need to
be located conveniently. Tote boxes can be used to cart materials if the participants go to
different classrooms for homework. Activities such as journal writing, program “post offices”
supporting letter writing, staff made and commercial games need to be available.
How will you set up a communication system with the teachers, parents and children about the
homework assistance program activities?
A structure should be developed so that the teachers and after-school staff can communicate
about homework on a regular basis. At some schools, teachers provide the after-school staff
with the list of assignments weekly or daily. Other programs have the staff pick up the
assignment sheets that teachers place in a hanging folder outside their classroom every day.
Others have the teachers provide them “homework packets” that the participants must complete
that week. Some programs have the participants sign a form whenever they claim not to have
homework that is then placed in the teacher’s box. Whatever system is used, communication
between the teacher and after-school staff about homework helps build the necessary linkage
between school and after-school programming. Other areas that should be communicated include
difficulties that children are having in mastering skills and opportunities to acknowledge
participant successes.
Parents also need to be kept regularly informed. As mentioned before, a homework contract
can be developed that the parents, participants and staff sign to assure that there is clarification of
the program’s goals. Other types of communication can take place through open houses, or daily
messages such as happy faces or sad faces stamped on participants’ hands to indicate whether
homework as been completed.
How do we teach participants responsibility?
Responsibility and obedience are two different desired outcomes. In order to develop
responsibility, individuals need to have choice. Therefore, in order to develop responsibility,
participants should help in deciding the outcomes that they desire to reach. Goal setting and
contract development can help participants gain confidence in their ability to decide on a desired
outcome and with effort reach that goal. Sometimes it helps participants work for individual
goals if they also develop group goals and help hold each other responsible reaching them.
How can we motivate participants to complete homework? Is there a difference
between rewards and celebrations?
Increased success in school is one of the greatest motivators for participants. Many
children have failed so long in school that they lose hope and therefore incentive to continue to
work in school. However, if they begin to see their efforts are paying off with better grades, it is
more likely that they will be motivated to continue. As the cliché goes, “nothing breeds success
like success.” A structure in which teachers communicate how the completion of their
homework is affecting their grades is one way of to increase the motivation of the homework
assistance program participants.
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Many times, motivation to complete homework must take on a more immediate form.
Individual or group celebrations of achievement can increase the desire to work on homework.
Research indicates that direct rewards for work can backfire, with the rewards becoming more
important than the work itself. Once the rewards have stopped, the participants have been
known to become even less motivated than before the reward structure was put in place.
However, success can be celebrated with such things as certificates, ice cream or pizza parties.
As a participant develops his homework goals, he or she should also decide how he would
celebrate the meeting of those goals. There is a subtle but real difference between paying a child
for accomplishment through rewards, and celebrating his or her success through some type of
acknowledgement of his accomplishment.
Developing a successful after-school homework assistance program is a challenge. Staff
must make decisions about staff, resource allocation, structures, communication and motivation
based on the desired goals of the program. If successful, homework assistance programs can be
a strong foundation in linking the after-school program with the school day, and a critical support
for families in their wishes for their children’s academic success.
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PROCEDURES FOR
AFTER-SCHOOL HOMEWORK ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
Goal of the after-school homework assistance program: The goal of the after-school
homework assistance program is to support the children attending the program to complete their
daily homework assignments by
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providing time for them to do their homework,
providing staff that can answer questions and encourage the children to finish, and
tracking homework completion and providing feedback to teachers and parents.
Procedures:
1. Immediately after snack, the children will sit at their designated table or room, and begin
their homework. At this time, the first graders will go to their own room for homework
time, and all other students will stay in the multi-purpose room when possible.
2. Each group will have an assigned table, preferable with some room between them.
3. The children will be allowed to talk quietly during homework time, as long as they are
working on their assignments.
4. Staff members will circulate around their groups, providing assistance and making sure
that the children understand their assignments. Staff should be working with the children
at all times.
5. If appropriate, small groups of children should be assigned to the volunteers who will
take them assist them in their homework. However, the staff member will continue to be
responsible for seeing that the children complete their work.
6. The staff should check to see if the children have finished their homework and track their
efforts on the form provided.
7. After the children have finished their homework, the staff will give them other activities
to complete that reinforce academic skills. If the children who have finished their
homework are distracting others or if they would prefer, they can move to the adjoining
table and work on the extra material or talk quietly. Care must be taken that children at
both tables are carefully supervised.
8. Support the children who attend intervention class to finish their homework during other
times during the program day.
Staff Responsibilities:
1. Supervise and support children while they do their homework
2. Track the children’s homework completion using the checklist
3. Maintain and distribute supplemental activities when homework is completed. (Note:
Workbooks, extra reading material etc. are available in the after school office. Staff
should select activities and give to Ingrid for copying.)
4. Support the volunteers who might be working with small groups.
Coordinator Responsibilities:
1. Work with the school to provide space for the children to use for doing homework.
2. Support staff during homework assistance time
3. Have available resources that staff can use for supplemental activities
4. Provide weekly feedback to staff about their performance during homework
assistance time.
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1. We will work on homework or other quiet activities
during the 30-minute homework time.
2. We will all use quiet voices so that everyone can work
on their homework or other activities.
3. We will stay in our groups during homework time
accept if given permission to leave.
4. We will help members in our group with their lessons
if requested.
5. We will help set up goals for homework and try to
meet them.
6. We will track our work in our folder.
7. We will put away any material that we used during
homework time.
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Monday
Name
Finished
*
Tuesday
Finished
*
Wednesday
Finished
*
Thursday
Finished
*
Friday
Finished
*
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Name:
Month:
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Finished
*
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
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Homework Problem Checklist
Child’s Name:____________________________________________
For each statement, check one
Never
At Times
Often
Very Often
Fails to bring assignments and necessary materials
(textbooks, pencil, etc.)
Doesn’t know exactly what homework has been
assigned.
Denies having homework assignment
Refuses to do homework assignment
Whines or complains about homework
Must be reminded to sit down and start homework
Doesn’t do homework satisfactorily unless someone
does it with him/her
Doesn’t do homework satisfactorily unless someone
does it with him/her
Daydreams or plays with objects during homework
Easily distracted by noises or activities by others
Easily frustrated by homework assignment
Fails to complete homework
Takes unusually long time to finish homework
Responds poorly when told by parent to correct
homework
Produces messy or sloppy homework
Hurries through homework and makes careless mistakes
Shows dissatisfaction with work; even when he/she does
a good job
Forgets to bring assignment back to class
Deliberately fails to bring assignment back to class
Modified from Kathleen M. Anesko, Geryl Schoiock, Rafael Ramirez and Fredric M. Levine . The Homework
Problem Checklist: Assessing Children’s Homework Difficulties. (1987) Behavioral Assessment, 9, 179-185.
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Homework Assistance Center Materials List
Required
Each Group:
 Folders (enough for each child)
 Homework Forms
 Staplers
 Scissors
 Baskets or cans to hold pencils
 Extra paper
 Pencil sharpener
 Extra pencils
 Appropriate Dictionary
 Appropriate Thesaurus (Grades 3+)
 Timers (either hourglass or stop watches)
 Privacy Boards (at least 3 per group)
 Pencils
 Lined paper
 Rulers
 Stickers
 Math Fact and Sight Word Flashcards
 Construction paper
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Hole Punch
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Colorful Index Cards
Site:
 Grade appropriate Reproducible Workbooks – at least one for each grade for the following subjects
o Math
o Reading
o Writing
 Access to the internet
Highly Recommended
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Fraction and Decimal Cubes
Subscription to Reading A to Z material
CD Player with appropriate music
Dice and playing cards
Rolling Cart
Tote boxes
Nice Supplemental Material
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Book libraries
More reproducible workbooks
Easel and Chart paper or portable chart paper easels
Websites for supplemental Worksheets
Puzzlemaker http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/
Create and print worksheets for free using vocabulary and spelling words.
Print and Use Tools from School Family.com http://www.schoolfamily.com/print-and-usetools?position=top – all sorts of downloadable worksheets
http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/ Both Language Arts and Math worksheet
Free printable worksheet in different subjects: http://www.kidzone.ws/ (Worksheets are
divided according to subject and also grade level. (Great downloadable “letter books” for
Kindergarten/First.)
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