Adapting Homework Assignments To Maximize Your Child's Strengths, Part II
Adapting Homework Assignments To Maximize Your Child's Strengths
Part II
| By | Dr. Sam Goldstein |
| Dr. Sydney Zentall |
One of the key factors to help your child with homework is to understand lesson objectives. If the lesson objective is solving math story problems, then reading the problems to your child or allowing your child to use a calculator does not represent a change of lesson objective. However, if the objective is math calculation and your child computes math problems using a calculator, then a change of lesson objective has been made. In this case, allowing your child to check math calculations with a calculator could be used as a reinforcer after a certain number of problems are completed. Such an activity would not involve changing the lesson objective.
The lesson objective in homework assignments may not always be apparent. If you are familiar with the subject area, then you may have an idea of the general content objective. If you read the instructions provided to your child you can probably figure out what skills the assignment is targeting. For example, if your child was asked to read about Brazil and then answer questions about geography, such an assignment targets understanding the culture rather than reading. If your child was asked to re-write sentences using commas, the assignment is directed at developing punctuation rules rather than handwriting. Finally, if your child is asked to read about a time in history but has difficulty with specific words or mis-reads specific words, rather than stopping and having the child sound out or look up these words, which is distracting, we suggest you read the words for your child, such that the focus can remain on gaining information from reading. If these suggestions make sense, you can be generally confident that you will be able to quickly understand and discern the objectives your child’s homework. However, if these examples are not apparent we suggest that you take the time to strengthen your skills in this area. One way to begin this process is to communicate with your child’s teachers to make certain that you understand the assigned objectives of homework.
