Homework Help

Now that all of your Back to School shopping is complete and your child has every school supply under the sun, the only thing left to help prepare is… the actual homework! Here are tips on how to help with the homework challenges we hear most from students.

When your child is singing the homework blues (“I don’t want to do it!” “I don’t get it!” “It’s too hard!”), the first step to helping out is to talk it through to figure out where your child is really struggling.

1. Non-Academic – the Seven Homework Dwarves: We’ve all met the seven homework dwarves before – Tired, Frustrated, Jumpy, Hungry, Grumpy, Overwhelmed, Energetic – but how can you make them go away?

- Talk about it: Talk about what’s going on to help develop a plan of action. Sometimes talking it through will even drive the seven homework dwarves away!

- Schedule: Schedule a routine study time to help prevent frustration by establishing a time that your child can expect to dedicate to homework.

- Quick breaks: Take quick breaks to do a few jumping jacks or a fun activity to prevent frustration.

2. Reading Homework Challenges:

- Vocabulary: Have your child check a glossary or dictionary for the pronunciation and definition. Ask, “from that sentence, what do you think the word ______ means?”

- Understanding the main idea of a passage: Have your student come up with a title for the paragraph s/he just read. Ask, “what happened in the story?”

- Remembering details from a passage: Have your child take notes as s/he reads to organize the information. Ask your child to re-read a paragraph aloud and tell you the specifics about what just happened.

- Understanding the purpose of a passage: Have your child underline or highlight parts of the passage that might show why the author wrote the story or essay. Ask, “who do you think the author wrote this story for?”

3. Math Homework Challenges:

- Remembering math facts: Use grade-appropriate flash cards to find out how fluent your child is with math facts. Use 10 minutes of study time to review facts your student doesn’t know right away.

- Understanding what a word problem is asking: Ask questions to help guide your child through the problem. Have your child read the question again slowly. Ask, “what is the question asking you to find? What do you need to know to find the answer?”

- Solving a word problem: have your child underline, circle and box different parts of the question or terms that relate to each other. Ask, “what patterns or relationships are there in the question?”

Comment below to share your tips with other parents!