• Check that homework assignments have been copied down correctly.
• Give out the homework assignment well before the end of the lesson.
• Give time for the homework to be done rather than next-day deadlines.

• Use a special area of the board for writing up homework               requirements. 
• Check that homework is  recorded with deadlines.
• Encourage students to highlight homework as it is completed - not cross it out.  They should be able to read their homework record.

• Reduce the number of items to be completed in a given assignment (for example, the number of words on the spelling list).

Match homework to the student.

• Provide practice questions for studying.

• Limit the amount of homework to a certain amount of time spent productively, rather than an amount of work to be completed.

Get them – or parents to enter time spent on a task in their homework diary – monitor time spent working outside school – aim for “what is reasonable”.

• Allow the student to work on homework at school.  Ideally study periods should be part of the school schedule.

• Marking of pupil’s work should be carried out with her/him present whenever possible; the teacher should sit on the same side of the desk.

Mark on content not presentation of work – don’t assume those “beetle trails” across the page are nonsense - usually they contain an awful lot of what is right - but often it can be “a bother” to decipher what has often been painstakingly produced.

• When correcting, try using two colours, one for content and the other for spelling and presentation.

Or mark only one form of error – spelling – or punctualtion – or capital letters - etc

• Indicate reading priorities.
• When marking, specify the skills mastered by the student, rather than giving a letter grade.

Match the literacy needs of your homework to the literacy levels of the group/individual.

• Mark positively – tick the good bits.

Allow credit for projects involving hands-on activities such as collages, dioramas, posters etc.

Allow oral or taped assignments.

Insist on drafts of written work with deadlines.

Provide regular guidance and appropriate supervision on planning assignments, especially extended projects that take several days or weeks to complete. A part of the SLD spectrum of symptoms may be a sort of a temporal disability where the gauging of time, and how long tasks will take, are distorted.

Allow the student to begin an assignment and then go to the teacher after the first few problems are done for confirmation that he/she is doing the assignment properly, and to receive gentle correction or praise.