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Homework Helps
Back to BEATING THE L.D. MONSTER
Excerpts from L.D. From the Inside Out
HOMEWORK OH HOMEWORK, I HATE YOU, YOU STINK!
From Homework, Oh, Homework by Jack Perlutsky
For a student with learning disabilities, homework can lengthen an already too long school day to nightmarish proportions.
The kids aren’t the only ones who feel that way. To this day my mother-in-law shudders when you mention the word. When
my husband was in grade school, they tackled homework together every night, and every night they both ended up in tears.
The first thing you have to do as a parent is give yourself permission to have trouble working with your child. Not only
is it normal, it’s almost a given. If you don’t have these problems, give yourself a pat on the back and say a
quick prayer of thanksgiving because you are definitely in the minority. That said, there are ways to make homework less
painful for everyone involved.
The First Battle: Keeping Track of Homework
One of the most difficult parts of the homework question is knowing when there is homework to do. Good communication between
home and school can often mean the difference between a student who succeeds and one who fails.
Many of my own students use a daily planner. The student writes done his or her unfinished assignments. I check it to make
sure homework is identified and sign it before they ever leave my classroom. Parents check it at the other and sign to show
they have seen it. I look at it again the next morning and remind the student to hand in any homework. It works very well
indeed for some students.
If you decide to use a planner, make sure that everyone involved buys into it, including your child. All it takes is one
person who forgets to sign it for the whole thing to fall apart. It’s pretty natural for kids to fight the idea but
usually they will give in when they see the parents and teachers are going to hold firm. As soon as the communication lines
are opened, it becomes second nature for parents, teachers and students to write in the planner every day. If your student
finds a planner too difficult to keep track of, daily assignment sheets can be used instead, but you still have to make sure
that everyone signs it.
A planner doesn’t work for everyone, however. In fact many L. D. students find it too cumbersome. Others, like my
son LeRoy, never seem to have it where he needed it. He’d tell the teachers it was at home, and tell us it was at school.
Sometimes a small reward will take care of that problem. Julie, for instance, got a small sticker every time she got it
home. She could trade the stickers in for privileges like an extra half an hour of TV before bedtime. It was all she needed
to help her get the planner home. If you find that a reward system does not make an appreciable difference, it may be that
a planner just won’t work for your student. Most often it is because they can’t keep track of it.
My son Paul was one of those. This was a child who would miss lunch because he forgot he had a check for lunch money in his
backpack. On top of that, writing was such a ordeal for him that recording assignments in his planner took much longer than
anyone else; time he could ill afford to waste. Then a teacher came up a quick and simple solution. During each class the
special ed aide wrote the assignments in Paul’s planner for him. As for the tie to home, a weekly assignment sheet
that came in the mail at the end of the week. Each teacher listed the assignments Paul was missing. At first he had three
or four a week, but by the end of the first year it was down to one a month. Since the object was for Paul to get homework
done not for him to record assignments, it worked quite well.
Many students will come up with their own method of keeping track of assignments. The following are some examples that you
and your student may like to experiment with.
1. LeRoy finally hit upon the idea of using a five-subject spiral notebook. He especially likes the ones with pockets in
the dividers to hold handouts he gets in class. He uses a different section for every subject with a page at the beginning
of each dedicated to assignments. When he finishes an assignment, he checks it off. At the end of every day all he has to
do is check each section to see what he needs to take home.
2. George uses a stack of spiral notebooks, one for each class. They are color coordinated so he can remember which is which.
Whenever the teacher give an assignment, he writes it down on the first page in that notebook. When he does his homework,
the assignment and work he already has finished on it are right there in the appropriate notebook. When he gets to class
the next day, he opens his notebook, tears out his homework and hands it in.
3. Margaret could never keep track of multiple notebooks so she relies on her textbooks. Whenever a teacher gives an assignment,
she writes it at the top of her paper before she even begins to work. When class is over, she folds her paper in half and
sticks it in the textbook. At the end of the day, she grabs the books with papers sticking out of them. It is an easy matter
to pick up where she left off when she gets home.
4. Paul uses a homework folder. Like Margaret, he writes the assignment at the top of the page before getting down to work.
He also dates the paper so he knows what day it was assigned. At the end of class he sticks the paper into his folder. When
it comes time to do homework, he opens the folder and looks for things dated that day. This is also handy when a teacher
asked about a specific assignment. He only has to search the homework folder instead of his locker, his back pack, all of
his textbooks, his bedroom, or the kitchen table where he did his homework.
5. Kay carries a zip-up binder. At the end of every class she sticks unfinished work in the front of her notebook. When
she gets home at night, all of her homework is at her fingertips as soon as she opens her notebook .
6. Beth tends to lose things like planners and notebooks. If she has an assignment, she writes it on the palm of her hand.
She claims it’s the best place since she’s never once lost her hand and if she ever does, homework will be the
least of her worries!
7. Josiah has a rough time with high school block scheduling. He couldn’t remember which classes were on which day
and as a result never knew which homework to do when. He solved his problem by investing in two distinctly different looking
backpacks. One is his even-day pack and the other is his odd-day pack. He keeps both backpacks loaded with everything he
needs. On even days he carried the blue backpack all day long , sticking assignments in it as he goes. At the end of the
day he takes it home and does all the homework for that day while it is still fresh in his mind. The next morning he throws
the blue backpack in his locker and grabs his red one which contains everything he’ll need for that next day including
his homework. Nothing goes back and forth between the two packs. He’s even gone so far as to buy two small dictionaries
and two calculators. Josiah admits it’s a rather expensive solution but it was worth every penny.
8. At the end of class Wayne sticks unfinished homework papers in his pants pocket. That way no matter what he does during
the day and after school, his homework makes it home with him. He admits he doesn’t have the system perfected yet since
papers do occasionally get lost or washed, but I have no doubt he’ll refine it into a workable method before long.
Battle 2: Get er' Done
Difficult as it is, getting the homework home is only the beginning. The real battle begins when it’s time for your
child to sit down and do the work. Many parents have a difficult time getting their children going on homework. With L.D.
kids the confrontation is likely to be even worse. Put yourself in the L.D. child’s shoes for a moment. You spend
the whole day struggling to do work that your classmates seem to race through. You’re working as hard as you can but
never finish anything before the teacher tells you it’s time to put your books away. No matter how hard you try, it’s
never enough, and you wind up feeling frustrated and stupid time and again.
At last the day is over and you can go home. You’re exhausted, but looking forward to kicking back in front of the
T.V. and relaxing. The minute you walk in the door, your mom asks if you have homework and says you’d better get to
it. Suddenly your backpack, which is stuffed with all the work you didn’t get finished in school, weighs a ton and the
evening stretches before you in an unbearable echo of the day. Is it any wonder that L.D. students tend to rebel?
Several years ago my husband came up with a solution that worked extremely well for us. Every afternoon I set an alarm clock
for seven P.M.. Nobody even mentioned homework until it went off. When my children got home from school they had three or
four hours to play with their friends, watch T.V., talk on the phone, play computer games, or do whatever they wanted to.
At seven o’clock the alarm rang and the homework came out. Even though we only had two hours before bedtime, they
almost always got finished with time to spare.
My kids worked faster and seemed to have an easier time if they had a break after school. I won’t pretend it solved
all of our homework problems, but suddenly they were more likely to grumble than to actually set their feet and refuse to
work. Confrontations were fewer, and my life a whole lot simpler.
So what kinds of things can you do to help your child with homework? First you need to know exactly what kinds of activities
your child has difficulty doing. Below are tasks that frequently cause L.D. students trouble. As you go through, place
a star on the line in front of those skills your child has and a minus in front of the skills your child does not have. It
is a good idea to fill the checklist out with your child. You may be surprised at some of his or her answers. There may
also be some that your child is not sure of. In that case, you may want to experiment a little.
Written tasks
Is able to write comfortably
Writes best with a mechanical pencil
Writes best with a finger grip on pencil
Writes best with ball-point pen
Is able to use a computer
Is able to type
Is able to use a spellchecker
Reading Tasks
Is able to gain information by reading
Is able to gain information by listening
Understands how to read textbooks for information
Is able to use a dictionary
Is able to gain understanding if he/she reads the material out loud
Mathematical Tasks
Knows addition/subtraction facts
Knows multiplication/division facts
Lines up numbers in math problems correctly (i.e. ones over ones in straight columns)
Understands story problems and is able to set up appropriate equations
Is able to use a calculator
Environmental concerns
Is able to sit still for long periods of time
Likes to drink and/or eat while working
Needs quiet while working
Needs noise while working
Works well with music
Prefers bright light
Prefers dim light
Works best with long periods of uninterrupted work
Works best with frequent breaks
Needs a variety with some long periods of work and some breaks
Anything with a minus is a potential problem and everything with a star is a potential solution. For instance, if you put
stars by “Works well with music”, “Prefers dim light” and “Needs noise when working”,
you have some pretty good clues how to set up the study area.
Battle 3: Whatever It Takes
At home your student is faced with the same problems as he or she is at school. As a parent it is hard to know how and even
when to help. For the individual subjects you will find strategies on this web site to try for math, reading and written
language, but often these aren’t enough. Sometimes your child will need crutches to help them along.
I know some of you are shaking your head right now and saying “I don’t want my child to become dependent on a
crutch.” To put this into perspective, imagine that your child falls out of the neighbor’s tree house this afternoon.
The bone in his leg snaps and pierces the skin; it’s a compound fracture! You rush him to the hospital and into surgery.
With several steel pins, medical expertise, and some luck the doctor is able to piece the leg back together.
The doctor tells you everything will be fine, but your child must use crutches for six weeks. If he doesn’t, his
leg may not heal correctly, and he may never be able to walk normally again. I don’t know a single parent who would
refuse their child the use of those crutches because the child might develop a dependency. It seems stupid to even suggest
such a thing, and yet there any number of parents that would deny the same kind of help for their child’s academic difficulties.
As with their medical counterparts, educational crutches tend to be cumbersome and difficult to use. A child will utilize
them only as long as they need to and will then discard them. If a student continues using a multiplication grid or a finger
to follow along in reading, it’s because they still need that crutch. Taking it away won’t make them learn any
faster, any more than taking away a child’s crutches will make them walk better. In fact, it may do irreparable harm.
One of the most common difficulties I’ve run into with my own kids, is the inability to write things down. Many L.D.
kids have trouble transferring coherent thoughts from their head onto paper. For many, like me, learning to type and using
a computer will eventually take care of the problem. In the short run, though, written school work becomes a major dilemma.
One way to solve this problem is to act as a “scribe” for your student. They dictate whatever it is they need
written and you write it down for them exactly the way they say it. From there, they can either copy it into their own writing
or type it.
This final step of having your child copy his work is very important. When he writes or types a word pathways are forged
in his brain. Each time the task is repeated, the pathway gets a little deeper and goes a little farther. With enough repetition,
it becomes permanent. That is why it’s a good idea for you to give your child a good model to copy. You will meet great
resistance when it you ask your child to copy what you have written down for them, but as usual there is a way around it.
In fourth grade my son Paul had to write several reports for his Wyoming History notebook. He had already written one about
the ancient Indian’s hunting practice of running buffalo off cliffs. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly for Paul,
he’d lost it. He dictated it to me using wonderful descriptive phrases that I guarantee wouldn’t have been there
had I made him write it himself. When we finished, he had a longer report than he’d originally started with and was
pretty proud of himself.
Then came time to type it. At that time Paul’s handwriting skills were faster than his typing. Unfortunately, even
he couldn’t read his writing. The paper obviously needed to be typed, but Paul was less than enthusiastic about doing
it. In fact, it was clear that left to his own devices the paper would never be finished. I don’t know about you,
but sitting over one of my children with a club is not my favorite way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Besides there was a show
we both wanted to watch on T.V.
Perhaps it’s my own L.D. but I sometimes get rather creative in my efforts to get work out of kids. That particular
day I made a deal with Paul. I would type three sentences to his one. The catch was someone had to be typing at all times
and we could only watch T.V. when the other person was typing. It worked like a charm, and since I attempted to coincide many
of Paul’s typing times with commercials I didn’t have a fight getting him to the computer on his turn. We finished
the report, proofread it and printed it out in less than an hour.
All through 4th grade, Martha tried to memorize the multiplication facts. I took her through every method I knew; nothing
worked. After 6 weeks of review in 5th grade, I taught her how to use a multiplication table and we moved on. With it she
mastered double digit multiplication and long division. When we got to fractions the light came on. She could work problems
in her head. For some reason she could look at 12 and tell you that 2/3 of it was 8, a concept most 5th graders have a great
deal of trouble with. Algebra and Geometry made sense to her too. Last I heard she was taking advanced math in high school,
and yes she still has her trusty multiplication table laminated and safely tucked into the front of her notebook. If I had
insisted she memorize her multiplication facts first, she’d still be working on them.
Often L.D. children come up with unique methods of doing math. These should be encouraged, though you should check out their
method to see if it works. My son Paul always has had a good grasp of math concepts but could never seem to memorize his
facts. This caused him a great deal of trouble over the years since he always had to figure out the fact as well as the math
problem he was working on. One afternoon at the beginning of sixth grade he was finishing up a math assignment in my classroom
after school. Suddenly he looked us with a big grin on his face. “Hey, Mom,” he said, “I just figured out
what I was doing wrong with subtraction!”
“Oh really? What’s that?”
“I wasn’t carrying.”
I’m sure I smiled. “You mean you weren’t borrowing. You carry in addition and borrow in subtraction.”
“No,” he shook his head adamantly. “I carried.”
After my many years of experience with L.D. students I knew better than to just write it down to using the wrong word, so
I asked him to show me.
“Well,” he said “take fifteen minus seven for instance. Seven is three away from ten so you add that onto
the top number which is five and get eight. So fifteen take away seven is eight.”
I was dumbfounded. How could that be? Maybe it just a coincidence. “Try another one,” I said. “How about
eleven minus six?”
“Ok, six is four away from ten so add that to one and you get five. Eleven take away six is five.”
We tried example after example and it worked on every one. I couldn’t believe it. I still don’t know why his
method works; it just does. That night when he explained it to his father, my husband just grinned at me and said, “That’s
the way I’ve always subtracted.”
I’m sure there are other kids out there that it would work for, but I’ve never shown it to my students. I’m
afraid it would confuse them as badly as it did me.
Strange methods aside, a very useful tool to have handy for math homework is a calculator. Though it shouldn’t be used
when you child has a page of straight calculations to do, a calculator is an excellent way for a student to check their own
work when they are finished. Most students enjoy the sense of power it gives them to be in charge of their own corrections.
It also helps them learn to use a calculator.
Calculators are also very handy when the process is the main emphasis rather than straight calculation. For instance, most
story problems are intended to teach students how to use math in everyday situations. The process of setting up the problem
is the main point not the actual calculation. In fact, if you’re like most people, you use a calculator to check your
math when you’re doing something important like your checkbook or figuring out how much carpet to buy.
When you help your child with math homework, one of the most effective things you can do is check his or her work. Put a
dot by the problems that are incorrect and let your child correct them. If they are having a rough time and becoming frustrated
show them where the mistake is, emphasizing what was done correctly.
DO'S AND DON'Ts
Do’s and Don’ts for Homework:
1. Don’t start homework as soon as your child gets home. Set a time every night to do homework and stick to it.
2. Do have a specific place for your students to do homework where they won’t be interrupted. The kitchen table is
fine as long as it isn’t a focal point for the rest of the family.
2. Do make sure your student has all the necessary supplies; paper, pencil, dictionary, etc. within easy access. It’s
not a bad idea to have a pencil sharpener near at hand.
3. Do experiment with the different kinds of pencils, pens, etc. until you find the best for your child. Some students work
best with long, sharp pencils, some with blunt tipped pencils and still others with little short stubs. Many L.D. students
find mechanical pencils very useful, though sometimes the distraction factor destroys any benefit.
4. If your child is a snacker, provide some nutritious, high protein snacks; lunch meat, cheese etc. Believe it or not the
brain, actually likes to be fed, and protein is its favorite food.
5. Do keep water handy. Brain tissues also work best if kept hydrated.
6. Tape recorders and video tapes help those students unable to take notes. Most teachers have no problem with taping of
their class.
7. Do allow breaks.
8. If your child is one who learns well by listening you may want to check out the “Books on Tape” program.
Created for visually impaired youngsters, it gives students with reading difficulties access to the material in their science
and social studies textbooks.
I could probably write an entire book on homework helps and still not cover them all. The truth is, homework solutions, like
most other topics on this web site depend on the individual. You and your student will have to experiment to find what works
best. Nearly every chapter L.D. From the Inside Out gives lists of strategies to try. Feel free to mix and match.
As my son Paul demonstrates over and over again, there is no one right way of doing things, and your child may come up with
a brand new one that will solve his homework dilemma.
For more homework helps, check out chapter 9 of L.D. From the Inside Out
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