Tackling Homework With Ease: A Guide For 2nd Grade Students

Although second graders can boast a year of elementary school experience, they’re still kids, lacking a great deal of concentration. Being a parent of a 2nd-grade student calls for active participation in the educational process of one's child. Here are some tips on how to help your child do his or her homework effectively.

• Establish a routine.

It’s important to make a habit of working on the home assignment. This way, your child will treat it, not as a necessity, but a regular activity. To establish a routine, make sure your child studies in one place and time every day. Choose together a study place where your child feels comfortable and where the distractions are minimal. Some children prefer their bedroom or kitchen while others want to work in their parent’s study or just at the table where mom or dad usually works.

• Make a to-do list.

Help your child organize his or her studying process by planning out what should be done for the next day and what can wait till the weekend. Draw a chart; write down the dates and the tasks to be done on a particular day; estimate how much time each assignment will take. Don’t forget to cross out the completed tasks from the list. This will show your child that he or she is doing a great job.

• Discuss a daily time for homework.

Educationalists suggest that students should spend no more than 10 minutes on doing their home assignment in the first grade, then 20 minutes in the second, and so on. You shouldn’t set the time, give your child the right to choose. Leave it up to your 2nd-grader to decide whether to study shortly after coming from school or to have fun at first and work after having dinner. Be authoritative if your child drags it out till bedtime. Also, gently advise him or her to start with more challenging tasks (usually math) because by the end of the evening all enthusiasm will go out and no energy will be left for tackling math problems.

• Divide the workload into small parts.

It’s difficult for children to keep a high level of concentration for a long period of time, so split a lengthy task into small chunks. Pause after accomplishing each of those small parts, have a healthy snack, and go on.

• Be near.

Make your child feel your presence. Children want their parents to be in the same, or next, room so that they can ask for help in case they’re having difficulty with understanding some points.