SCHOOL HOMEWORK What is the parent's role?

The most important thing is to create the proper environment, says one educator.
By PETER JENSEN
BALTIMORE SUN
Heather Jefferson used to make sure her daughters did their homework perfectly -- until it dawned on her that she was making the biggest mistake herself.
"How would the teachers ever know where their weaknesses lie?" reasoned Heather, a 37-year-old stay-at-home mother of two. "By third grade, I figured out I needed to stop correcting. I just make sure they've completed it."
When it comes to helping a child with homework, parents are learning that nothing is obvious.
Pupils today come home with far more homework -- and start getting it at a younger age -- than their parents ever did. That puts a lot of pressure on moms and dads, who are seldom told their proper role in homework. Are they to be teacher, enforcer or bystander?
Studies suggest that time spent on homework has grown by half over the past two decades. And the concept of a kindergartner coming home with a project due for school is no longer a punch line, it's a common experience in private and public schools.
"Nowadays, there's so much to learn, a lot gets pushed down to the lower grades," says Barbara Sharrer, a resource teacher at Lansdowne Elementary and 36-year veteran of Baltimore County schools.
"I know it gets some parents upset to see so much homework be sent home," she said, "but some parents get upset if there isn't homework, too."
Educators admit that homework is the source of more squabbles between schools and families than any other single topic. But they also sing its praises as a teaching tool, a way to reinforce school lessons and create self-discipline in pupils.
Getting involved
But no matter where parents stand on the subject, primary school homework is a fact of life and virtually demands parental involvement. How a parent reacts to homework can make the difference between a fulfilling experience and a distressing one.
"We recommend that parents talk to teachers before everything hits the frustration level," says Linda Hodge, national president of the Chicago-based PTA and a mother of three.
Harris M. Cooper, author of "The Battle Over Homework" (Corwin Press, 2001) and a professor of psychology at Duke University in Durham, N.C., says problems with homework inevitably start because parents aren't told what their role should be.
"A mistake made by teachers is that they make an assumption that parents have both the time and skill necessary to be effective mentors," he says.
Improving communication
At Clarksville Elementary School, a top-performing school in Howard County, Md., fifth-grade teachers are trying to improve those lines of communication. They sent home a full-page letter of homework advice to parents during the first week of school.
Their recommendations included setting a schedule for when homework will be done and being careful to never give answers, but sometimes offer clues like: "The question asks for the total. Does that mean the numbers all together or only the number left over?"
"The most important thing for parents to do is to create an environment for children to do their work at home," says Diane Miller, a fourth-grade teacher at Clarksville. "I don't give parents homework. The child has to be able to work independently."
Clarksville teachers say they live by the popular homework mantra -- 10 minutes of homework per night per grade -- so that first-graders get 10 minutes, second-graders 20 minutes and so on.
Homework is only assigned Monday through Thursday so that families won't have to deal with it on weekends.
"Think of homework as learning practice -- like soccer practice," says Cathi Souder, an eighth-grade reading teacher at nearby Clarksville Middle School. "As a parent you set a scene, you lend a structure, you make the schedule. But you don't do it yourself."