When teachers grade the homework that parents have helped with, they find that the quality of the work is higher than what the students normally submit (Rillero, Gonzalez-Jensen, & Moy, 2000). Many researchers have observed that home learning can be more effective and richer than school learning. However, parental involvement is not necessarily advantageous: a number of families experience considerable conflict over homework (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2001).
Solomon, Warin & Lewis (2002) suggest that parental commitment to homework is critical, and that schools should work towards 'A learning partnership with parents'. They also suggest guidance on the ways in which parents and carers can support pupils' homework by providing an appropriate environment, encouragement and praise and by making it clear that they value homework and support the school. Parents should be encouraged along with teacher guidance, to be actively involved in homework activities. This should be done even though some parents may find supporting their children with homework difficult and schools might find it a challenge to get parents help.
What Parents Can Do.
Schools are encouraged to set homework on the assumption that parents will provide the necessary support to get the homework finished. Parents, as a group, engage in a broad range of homework involvement behaviors (Hoover-Dempsey, et al., 2001). The parent's education, skills, comments and job situations often determine how the parent helps the child with homework. Parents' homework involvement activities give children multiple opportunities to observe and learn from their parents' modeling (of attitudes, knowledge, and skills pertinent to learning) to receive reinforcement and feedback on personal performance and capability (Hoover-Dempsey, et al., 2001). Most teachers and administrators report that they want parents to support their children's learning and to monitor homework, but they think that most parents do not do enough (Epstein & Van Voorhis, 2001).