Do kids really need homework?

Homework can be a source of stress for kids and families, especially for those with learning and thinking differences. In this episode, assistant principal Julian Saavedra breaks down what homework is good for, when it can become overwhelming, and practical ways to support kids. From creating routines and communicating with teachers to leveraging IEPs and 504 plans, Julian shares strategies to make homework a positive, manageable part of learning and help kids build habits that stick.

• Listen: Homework battles

• Read: FAQ about homework for kids

• Download: Homework contract for your child

Julian Saavedra: Do kids need to do homework? That is a hot button issue in many schools and families. Some kids get piles of it. Some hardly get any. Some kids find it easy to get it all done, others struggle with it for hours upon hours. And so often that means their parents do too. Is it really worth it?

Welcome to "The Opportunity Gap," a show where we talk about how to navigate the education system. I'm your host, Julian, an assistant principal with over 20 years of experience. Today we're going to deep dive into the homework issue. I'll give you my two cents, or maybe five cents, on what it's good for, what it's not so good for, and how to make it a little bit easier for kids who are really struggling with it.

All right, so number one, let's start thinking about what homework is good for. When can it be useful? The majority of homework allows kids to practice skills. So in many literacy based classes, there might be articles or information given in preparation to learn something new. It's a previewing technique.

There also might be the flip side where it's practice for skills that students were learning in class and it's extra practice. I think back to those math examples where you might have a one page worksheet with 10 math examples that you're practicing the same thing you did in class earlier that day.

And the idea is the more you practice, the more that you're going to build habits. And learning is all about building habits. Repetition leads to mastery. Now, the flip side is that there are some serious drawbacks to homework. And there's some things that people might not realize that I want to bring up.

As an educator, I've seen it all. And one of the things that I've seen, especially in the high school setting and especially with some upper level classes, some kids are just getting way too much. If your child is spending hours and hours on homework or they're doing homework on the weekends or they're spending, you know, all this time in their free time on homework, then that negates the entire purpose.

It comes in with some built in inequities. I actually had a conversation with a teacher about this today where the teacher had been giving a take home assignment over the weekend. And about two thirds of the students brought it back, but it required the students to use their laptop to look up information to finish the assignment.

And I had to explain to the teacher that when we're assigning things over the weekend that require multiple steps, we have to take into account that for our population, some of our students don't have access to the internet at home. You have no idea what's happening outside of the school building.

And so for so many of our students, especially in the climate that we live in now, a lot of them have a lot of uncertainty. And so we can't guarantee that the environment is going to be a controlled environment.

Whereas in the school building, in a classroom, the teacher and the school can control the space. They can make it an equal space for everybody to have an equal opportunity to access the content.

03:40 Stress and burnout

Julian: One of the other things is that as a teacher, when I'm giving homework, I want to make sure that it's low stress and it's directly tied to the content. If I'm giving them something that I don't know how they're going to do and I don't know if they're going to get help or not, then it's not helping them and it's really not helping me.

Especially for our students with learning and thinking differences, are we allowing accommodations to be made for homework? And in some cases those accommodations or modifications might not be present. And so the homework itself, it doesn't have the same validity.

Some kids are just plain burned out from the day, especially our babies with learning and thinking differences. So for them to put all of their effort into maintaining themselves during the school day and then for them to come and try to work at something at home, it gets really difficult and it burns them out.

We don't want them to feel burned out after school. We want them to feel good about school. And so there's a lot of different cons and different things that can come into place when we're talking about homework.

But whether you like it or not, your child is going to be doing homework. And we have to figure out how to support our children with this homework. The things that you can try to make sure you do: create a routine. Make sure that your children are doing their homework the same time every day. Create a structure around it.

Let me run you through my children's routine here in the Saavedra household. My son and my daughter come home, they unpack their book bags, they get themselves snacks. My daughter has a seat at the dining room table, my son has a seat in the kitchen.

A lot of their homework is on their Chromebooks, so they open their Chromebooks up, they show me the assignments that they have to work out, and then they get started. My daughter usually likes to hang out for a little bit before she does her homework, whereas my son really likes to get his homework done immediately.

So based on the conversations we had with each other, my wife and I decided this is what the routine's going to be. And so every day it's the same thing. We have X amount of time to get it done, make sure you show mom and dad what you're working on, and let me know if you have some questions.

And then from there then they can go play or they can do whatever the rest of the routine is. But we want to make sure that it's a routine that they're comfortable with. Whatever it is, create a routine because consistency — it matters. And we want to make sure that we're providing that consistent structure for our children.

Now, some people might advocate for checking the homework to make sure every single answer is correct, and I've also heard people say, well, let them do it completely by themselves. If they get it wrong, then that's what they need to learn how to deal with.

That's up to you, that's completely how you decide to work through that. I would recommend talking to the teacher and figuring out what the teacher's expectations are so that you and the teacher are on the same page.

06:38 Effectively communicating with teachers when a child is struggling

Julian: So how do you talk to your child's teacher about homework struggles? That's something that might come up a lot. And so first, you want to make sure that you know struggles — what do you mean by that?

A struggle might be your child is taking far too long to do the homework. Your child is really frustrated, they're irritable, they're not doing it — they just don't do it at all — or when you check it, they're getting it wrong or they're getting frequent corrections that need to be made.

If any of these things are happening, make sure you check with the teacher and check in quickly. You don't want to let this pattern continue because then it can become a habit, and we don't want that habit to form.

So number one is be specific about what you're looking at. For example, "I noticed that anytime my child has science homework, they're just skipping any questions that have them do writing." Or "My child's not coming home with any homework. My friends, they said their kids are coming home with homework, but my child's not bringing anything home. What's going on with that?"

So make sure that you're very specific about the question and the noticing that you have when you talk to the teacher because remember, teachers have multiple students they're dealing with. They might not know all the intimate details, so you want to make sure that you're specifying exactly what you're seeing so that they can know.

And then once you've identified what the ask is, think about some solutions. And part of that solution is going to be relating to their expectations. So ascertaining what expectations the teachers have for homework is really important. That way you can support it and you can reinforce it at the house.

So making sure that you're asking how much homework should be done, about how long do you think kids should be taking to do this? And if your child has an IEP or a 504 plan, you can always request an IEP team meeting or a 504 team meeting to go over some of the homework struggles that you're noticing.

And in many cases, accommodations might already be written into the IEP or the 504, so you want to make sure that those are happening. So homework is a very touchy subject. Some people absolutely love it, some people struggle with it.

Whatever camp you fall into, it's important that you know what the expectation is and it's important to know how you can support your child. Your school and your teachers are great resources to support with homework, but make sure that you understand what steps you're going to take to ensure that homework is a positive experience for our children.

It's practice, it's reinforcement, and it's habit building. But most importantly, it's just a part of the school experience.

Thanks so much for listening today. We love hearing from our listeners, so if you have any thoughts about today's episode, you can email us at opportunitygap@understood.org.

And be sure to check out the show notes for links and resources to anything we mentioned in the episode.

This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences, like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give.

"The Opportunity Gap" is produced by Julie Subrin and Gretchen Vierstra.. Video is produced by Calvin Knie and edited by Jessie DiMartino.

Briana Berry is our production director. Jordan Davidson is our editorial director.

From Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key and Scott Cocchiere.

Thanks again for listening.