The Roots of Effective Homework and Studying

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.

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.

How can a parent help?
Parental attitudes towards homework have a direct effect 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 and discipline, 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.

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 can be 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.

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 un-necessary, 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.

Too Much Homework? Not Enough?

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.

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.

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.

List 1	List 2	List 3
cabin devour enter field sample complex obtain fraud right labour iceman house	tep fis mek rof zul lor cuy vib deg gai hib muz	people remember more effectively when they understand what they have to 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.

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/her own words.
Talk about the note by relating it to what your child already knows.
Check for understanding!

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.

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/her 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/her 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.

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.

One system for keeping notes and learning from them is called "3 R's" (Record, Reduce, Recall). The note page is organized as shown below.

1. The note is RECORDed in the larger page. The actual note may be copied from the blackboard, a textbook or 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.

Regardless of how a student's notes are physically arranged, it is the steps in the "3R" system that are 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?

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.

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 the diagram to see 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.

Drawing good maps requires practice and you can help your child by seeing that (1) main ideas have been identified, (2) the organization of the map is accurate, and (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/herself on understanding and recall of the note material.

Identify main idea.

Identify supporting ideas.

Draw lines or circles to show the relationships between ideas.

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 he/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 he/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.

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.

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/herself that he/she is reading to remember. This can be carried out by the student frequently stopping and asking himself/herself "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.

Decide on the purpose of reading.
Write question marks on the page to stop and ask 'what have I read?'

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 nicely "
(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.

Self-testing
As mentioned throughout this booklet, very often the student who reports that he/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.

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.

Encourage your child to stop and ask questions to check for understanding.

Be available to help your child check for
understanding.

Use 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 dis-couragement 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.

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.

Reviewing school materials
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/herself 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/she gets much better results from studying.

Have your child review notes regularly.
Space the reviews over time.
End each review with self-testing.

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 he/she knows the school work, he/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 all students.

Some practices that will likely assist your child at test time include:

Conclusion

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.

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 Harris Cooper, James T. Lindsay, Barbhara Nye, Scott Greathouse Journal of Educational Psychology. 1998 Mar Vol 90 (1) 70-83