When I was in the classroom, one of the first things I always told parents and other caretakers was how much I valued their input and support. I believed my students were best served when there was a strong connection between home and school. I know my colleagues felt the same way.
Keeping families informed and involved in student learning just makes sense. The saying “It takes a village to raise a child” became popular because it is based on the reality that no one person—teacher, parent, or anyone else—can provide all the support a child needs. In fact, our summer 2025 research brief on the importance of family engagement following COVID-19 school closures highlights the importance and benefits of family engagement. It defines family engagement as “a collaborative endeavor between schools, families, and communities that enhances educational opportunities for all students within and beyond school settings.” It explains the need for “regular, frequent, and ongoing communication with families” and adds that strong home–school connections can improve students’ academic performance in literacy and math, socioemotional skills, high school graduation rates, and even college attendance.
If only making those connections were easy! There can be so many barriers to strong family engagement. Teachers may face difficulty with time, scheduling, and communication. Families sometimes lack digital access or are not sure what questions to ask or how to interpret information sent home from school.
When I was teaching, I knew I needed to find ways to engage families that were manageable in terms of time and effort—on both sides—and that provided meaningful ways for families to support their children. One tool elementary educators can turn to is homework. But I offer that up with some warnings and hesitation. On the surface, it might seem that homework offers a simple opportunity to give families insight into what students are learning and engage them in working directly with their children. Finding a way to make homework a meaningful tool for family engagement, however, is much more complicated than just sending home a couple of worksheets or asking for a weekly book report. Purposeful homework is key.
The challenges of homework
Perhaps the most significant challenge of using homework to engage families is that it can have limited value for elementary students. While doing homework can help students develop good habits, multiple studies have found that there is only a minimal correlation between homework and academic achievement through sixth grade; see “Is homework good for kids? A research-based guide for parents and teachers” and “The impact of homework on elementary student achievement: A systematic literature review” for more on this.
Another concern is the specialized support homework might require. It’s easy to say, for example, “Well, parents should be able to do fourth-grade math,” but families may feel very differently. Whether or not they understand the concepts their children are learning, teaching those concepts is a very different undertaking. Many parents are not comfortable in the role of teacher, even if they have the knowledge necessary.
Time is an additional—and critical—issue. Parents and other primary caregivers across the socioeconomic spectrum have heavy demands on their time, and homework can be a stressor for all families. Many children are being helped with homework by older siblings or childcare providers, including nannies, for example, or they are left to their own devices, doing the best they can to complete homework with no adult support at all.
Finally, equity can come into play. As noted in “How does homework negatively affect students?” “Students from affluent families often benefit from parental assistance with homework, including access to private tutors and educational enrichment programs. Children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds may lack this support due to their parents’ work schedules, educational attainment, or limited resources. This unequal access to support creates a significant disadvantage.”
Rethinking homework
So is homework ever a good way to engage families? Yes, homework can be assigned in ways that are engaging and meaningful, if teachers are thoughtful about what they assign. As the articles “Does homework still have value? A Johns Hopkins education expert weights in” and “Is homework useful for kids? If so, what age should it start” suggest, homework can be reinvented in ways that avoid common pitfalls. Research summarized in Edutopia’s “The pros and cons of homework (in 6 charts)” supports the following practices:
- Ensure homework assignments are age appropriate
- Prioritize reading and writing practice over math drills
- Ensure students have access to a computer and the internet if they’re required to complete assignments
When planning what to assign for homework, I encourage you to consider your objectives and whether your assignments meet them. If you’re an elementary educator hoping to prepare students for the demands of middle school and beyond, for example, remember that “play may do more to build both academic skills and emotional regulation than nightly worksheets.” If your goal is to foster family engagement, look for assignments that involve caretakers without requiring them to take on the role of teacher or dedicate large amounts of time to the effort. A common guideline noted by the National Education Association (NEA) is not more than ten minutes of homework per grade level per night. So, for example, a first-grader should not be given more than ten minutes of homework while a fourth-grader could be given as many as 40. To make sure you’re hitting this goal, the NEA also recommends surveying students to see how long they actually spend on homework, although with younger students, it might make sense to check in with their parents instead.
Other factors to consider when approaching homework with intention include the following:
- What is your school’s culture around homework? Some elementary schools prefer to leave homework for middle and high school while others see the benefits to introducing it earlier, with intention. I’ve worked in schools where families loved long-term projects that allowed them to engage with their children in creative ways. In other schools, many parents preferred short, daily assignments or minimal homework.
- What types of at-home support do most of your students have? Consider the needs of the majority of your families, and look for ways to adapt assignments for those who need something different. Confirm students have access to the internet and a computer, if required to complete the homework.
- What are the best platforms for communicating with families about homework? Will your population do best with hard copy assignments? Does your district or school provide an online platform, and do all students have sufficient access to it?
- How often do you expect students to turn in homework? Daily assignments can be easier for families to keep track of, but giving homework by the week allows families more flexibility and requires less back and forth between home and school.
Teacher time matters, too
Back when I was a classroom educator drowning in math worksheets, homework put big demands on my already limited time. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
One of the best examples I’ve seen of low-stress, engaging homework that takes student, family, and teacher needs into account was a regular assignment used by the second-grade team in a school where I worked. My colleagues worked together to create a weekly conversation guide; it included a short section for announcements and reminders of upcoming events, followed by a simple summary of what students were learning in each subject that week.
The bulk of the guide was a list, divided by subject, of questions parents and other caregivers could ask or activities they could do with their children to support extending learning beyond the classroom. Adults could pick and choose which parts of the guide to use, and there was no expectation that they complete a certain number of prompts or send in initialed copies to show what they had done. It was simply a way to help parents know what to talk abut with their children, that is, an easy, low-pressure way for families to engage.
They emailed the guide to families on the same day every week, providing paper copies as needed. The guide kept homework assignments consistent across second grade and also made it easy to split up the work required to prepare and send it. It followed the same format every week, so the team could easily share responsibility for creating it, either by trading off by week or assigning one section or subject to each teacher. With minimal effort, they created a rich, engaging assignment that brought families together in meaningful ways.
In closing
No one would deny that family engagement is important for supporting students, but it can seem difficult to achieve. Homework is one example of this. While it can be frustrating and challenging for everyone involved, with some thought, planning, and trial and error, there are ways to turn homework from a chore into a rich and meaningful way for families to support their children at home.
