Secondary maths, chemistry, a language you never took, a first program in Python: sooner or later the homework is beyond you. You can still help your child with a subject you do not know yourself, because the help the research favours at this age was never the teaching of content.
What follows is for a parent whose child is about eleven to sixteen: what the studies of parents and homework find, five questions that work in any subject, how to hold the right answers without the knowledge, and when to write to the teacher. For a younger child, start with the five-question homework check. EdProcto's page for parents shows the product's side of it: questions from a page of the schoolbook, and the reason after each answer.
A research finding is named with its study, and our own working rules are marked as ours.
Can you help with homework in a subject you do not know?
Yes, and not knowing it may spare you the kind of help that does least good. At secondary age the kinds of involvement most strongly linked to achievement are expectations, interest and structure. Direct help with the homework has the weakest link, and in more than one analysis a negative one.
Hill and Tyson (2009) pooled 50 studies of the middle school years, roughly ages eleven to fourteen. What they call academic socialisation (saying what you expect and why school matters, discussing how to study, planning for what comes after) had the strongest association with achievement, a correlation of .39. Help with homework was the one kind with a negative figure, −.11.
What helps at this age
Vasquez et al. (2016) pooled 36 studies of parents' autonomy support, meaning backing for a child's own choices and initiative. It went with higher achievement and with better motivation, engagement and attitudes to school.
Patall et al. (2008) pooled 20 studies that set parents' involvement in homework beside results. Rule-setting had a stronger association than other kinds of involvement. The link was positive in the primary and high school years, negative in the middle school years, negative for mathematics and positive for verbal subjects.
Where direct help backfires
These are correlations, and parents step in more when a child is already struggling, so a negative figure is no proof of harm. Hill and Tyson offer three other possible reasons: interference with the child's autonomy, too much pressure, and parents presenting the material differently from the school. They tested none of them.
A parent's own unease is a fourth. Maloney et al. (2015) followed children in first and second grade through one school year. Where parents were anxious about maths and reported frequent help with maths homework, the children learned less maths and finished the year more anxious. Where such parents helped less often, their anxiety was unrelated to how the children did.
Retanal et al. (2021) surveyed parents of children aged 11 to 14. The more maths-anxious parents reported more help of both the autonomy-supportive and the controlling kind, and the controlling kind partly explained the relation between their anxiety and their children's maths achievement. One study is of young children, the other a single online survey, and neither tested a remedy.
Why is asking your child to explain a real way to help?
Because explaining is one of the better-tested ways to learn, and it needs a listener, not an expert. Researchers call it self-explanation: saying in your own words why a step follows.
Bisra et al. (2018) pooled 69 effect sizes from 64 reports on prompting learners to explain while they studied or solved problems. The mean effect was g = 0.55.
A listener seems to add something. Rittle-Johnson et al. (2008) had 54 children of four and five explain correct solutions to their mothers, explain them to themselves, or repeat them. Explaining improved accuracy either way, and explaining to a mother carried furthest to new problems. These were small children on classification puzzles, not teenagers on chemistry.
The limits
- The gains may fade. In mathematics, Rittle-Johnson et al. (2017) found small to moderate gains straight after the session, and much thinner evidence that they last or hold in ordinary classrooms. They advise prompting learners to explain correct material.
- An explainer can coast. The untrained peer tutors watched by Roscoe and Chi (2008) mostly summarised the source with little elaboration, and built understanding more often when the other student asked a question that needed an inference. They were peers, not parent and child.
- It works when it is expected. Kobayashi (2024) pooled 39 studies of learning by teaching. Teaching after study helped when learners had studied expecting to teach (g = 0.48). When they had not, its effect did not differ significantly from zero (g = −0.02). So say at the start, "show me this when you are done": our inference.
Which questions can you ask in any subject without knowing the answer?
Five: what is this asking, show me one you can do, where did it stop making sense, what would your teacher say first, how would you check it. Each tells you something whatever the reply. They are our working rule, and no study has tested them.
| Ask | Listen for | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| What is this asking? | The task in their own words | Whether the trouble is the question or the method |
| Show me one you can do. | A whole example, talked through | Where solid ground ends. None at all means the topic is missing, not a step |
| Where did it stop making sense? | A finger on one line | How narrow the gap is. "All of it" usually shrinks to a line |
| What would your teacher say first? | The first step as taught, found in the notes | Whether the method was on paper all along |
| How would you check it? | A test: put it back in, estimate, run the code | Whether your child can tell right from wrong without you |
Ask them in order, and wait: you have no hint to fill a silence with, which here is an advantage. To support revision as a parent, ask the same five about a past question before the mark scheme is opened.
How do you hold the right answers without knowing the subject?
Take the answer and its reason from your child's own book, and let your child do the explaining. You hold the key without holding the knowledge. The procedure is ours.
- Find the chapter's own example. Ask your child where the book works one like it.
- Get questions that carry answers and reasons. Paste the page, at least a paragraph, into the quiz maker on EdProcto's home page, with no sign-up to try it. Procto AI writes three, five, eight or ten questions from that text, and each shows where in it the answer sits.
- Let your child answer, then explain the reason back. On the study screen the right answer and its reason appear after each question.
- Read each answer and its reason against the passage. Procto AI is asked to write only what the text answers, and nothing removes a question that falls short, so your reading is the check. It needs no knowledge: the passage either says what the answer says or it does not.
- If the key and your child disagree, do not rule on it. Ask for the line in the book. If that fails, it goes in the note.
What does one evening look like?
Here is one: a fifteen-year-old, a parent who last met algebra decades ago, and ten equations to solve by factorising. Work had stopped at the fourth.
- "What is this asking?" "The values of x that make it come to zero." The task was understood.
- "Show me one you can do." For x² + 8x + 15 = 0: "Multiply to 15, add to 8, so 3 and 5. That is (x + 3)(x + 5), so x is −3 or −5." The method is sound when every sign is a plus.
- "Where did it stop making sense?" At x² − 8x + 15 = 0: "3 and 5 make 8, not minus 8." One line, one sign.
- "What would your teacher say first?" "List the pairs, and two minuses multiply to a plus." It was in the exercise book. With −3 and −5 the equation is (x − 3)(x − 5) = 0, so x is 3 or 5.
- "How would you check it?" "Put them back in." 9 − 24 + 15 = 0, and 25 − 40 + 15 = 0. The child could prove the answer, and the parent could follow the arithmetic.
The parent explained nothing.
The short quiz from the chapter
The parent then typed the chapter's page on factorising into the quiz maker and chose three multiple-choice questions. A set of this kind, each with its answer and reason, is what such a page supports:
- Which two numbers multiply to 15 and add to −8? −3 and −5. A positive product with a negative sum needs two negatives.
- What are the solutions of x² − 9x + 14 = 0? 2 and 7. It factorises to (x − 2)(x − 7), and a product is zero only when one bracket is zero.
- How is a solution checked? Substitute it into the equation. The left side must come to zero.
For what to do with a miss, see the questions you got wrong.
The note to the teacher
Four questions were undone when time was up, so a note went in with the book:
Factorising homework, questions 1 to 10, 40 minutes. Questions 1 to 3, all plus signs, she did alone. From question 4 she could not choose the signs until she found the factor pairs in her class notes, then did 4 to 6 and checked each by substituting. Questions 7 to 10 are not attempted, and we have corrected nothing. Could the step for the signs be shown again?
When should you stop and write to the teacher?
Stop when the five questions and the book's own example have not moved the work. In Hill and Tyson (2009), involvement at the school, which includes contact between parents and school staff, had a positive link with achievement (.19). The rest is our working rule.
In practice: your child cannot show you one they can do, one question has had ten minutes with the worked example open, the agreed time is up, or you are about to explain it your own way.
Put in the note what was set, how long it took, what was done alone, where it stopped in your child's words, what was tried, and one request. Say that nothing has been corrected. Leave out any verdict on the teaching.
What routine, time and place help?
A fixed time and place, agreed once, with you nearby and busy with something else. This is the rule-setting that Patall et al. (2008) measured, and the details are ours.
- The same start on school nights, and a stopping time set before the work begins.
- A table with the book, the class notes and the answers to hand, and the phone in another room.
Let your child choose the order of the subjects.
What should you not do?
Do not teach your own half-remembered method, do not do the work, and do not show alarm at the subject.
- Your own method. It may be right and still not be the school's: the mismatch Hill and Tyson name as one possible reason for the negative figure. Ask for the book's method.
- The work. A finished page tells the teacher that nothing needs reteaching.
- Alarm. In place of "I was hopeless at maths", try "I never learned this, so show me how your book does it". The Maloney and Retanal findings are the reason, and the wording is ours.
How does EdProcto give you the answer and its reason?
EdProcto is the best tool for this job because it writes the questions from your child's own chapter and sets the answer, its reason and the passage behind it in front of you. A parent holding those three can do without the subject, and the method stays the school's.
On the study screen. Each answer is checked as it is given, and the quiz ends with a retry of the misses. Shared with your child by its code, it still checks each answer for them, but the misses, the retry and the date it falls due again stay with the account that owns the quiz.
Kits for the secondary years. Some are filled from the book you paste. Others are made in code by rule, fresh each time, and at secondary level those cover maths, science, computing and English.
| Subject | Kit and level |
|---|---|
| Any | "A parent's check on homework (secondary)" among EdProcto's kits: paste the worksheet or chapter for brief questions to ask, answers included |
| Maths | "A maths chapter (secondary)" from the book. By rule, "Solving equations" for ages 11 to 14 |
| Science | "A science chapter (secondary)". By rule, "Chemical formulas" for ages 13 to 16 |
| A language | "Grammar gaps (secondary)" |
| Coding | "Read the code (secondary)". By rule, "Predict the output" for ages 13 and up |
At upper secondary level, the rule-made "Quadratics by factorising" for ages 14 to 16 sets equations with two positive whole solutions, the pattern in the evening above.
On the Free plan you get every kit, and Procto AI writes 20 questions a month from your own material. On the Learner plan it writes 100. Plans are set out on the pricing page.
Quick questions
How can I help my child with maths I do not understand?
Ask and do not teach. The five questions above need no maths from you, and helping this way leaves the method to the book.
What if the homework is too hard for parents like me?
It need not be within your reach. EdProcto's page for parents says the same: the kits carry the answers and the explanations.
Should I learn the topic myself first?
No, in our view. A video lesson may give you a method that is not the school's. Listen to your child explain the book's.
When should I contact the teacher about homework?
When your child cannot show you one example they can do, or the agreed time has run out. Say what was set, what was done alone and where it stopped.
References
- Bisra, K., Liu, Q., Nesbit, J. C., Salimi, F., & Winne, P. H. (2018). Inducing self-explanation: A meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 30(3), 703–725. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-018-9434-x
- Hill, N. E., & Tyson, D. F. (2009). Parental involvement in middle school: A meta-analytic assessment of the strategies that promote achievement. Developmental Psychology, 45(3), 740–763. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015362
- Kobayashi, K. (2024). Interactive learning effects of preparing to teach and teaching: A meta-analytic approach. Educational Psychology Review, 36(1), Article 26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-024-09871-4
- Maloney, E. A., Ramirez, G., Gunderson, E. A., Levine, S. C., & Beilock, S. L. (2015). Intergenerational effects of parents' math anxiety on children's math achievement and anxiety. Psychological Science, 26(9), 1480–1488. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615592630
- Patall, E. A., Cooper, H., & Robinson, J. C. (2008). Parent involvement in homework: A research synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 78(4), 1039–1101. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654308325185
- Retanal, F., Johnston, N. B., Di Lonardo Burr, S. M., Storozuk, A., DiStefano, M., & Maloney, E. A. (2021). Controlling-supportive homework help partially explains the relation between parents' math anxiety and children's math achievement. Education Sciences, 11(10), Article 620. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11100620
- Rittle-Johnson, B., Loehr, A. M., & Durkin, K. (2017). Promoting self-explanation to improve mathematics learning: A meta-analysis and instructional design principles. ZDM, 49(4), 599–611. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-017-0834-z
- Rittle-Johnson, B., Saylor, M., & Swygert, K. E. (2008). Learning from explaining: Does it matter if mom is listening? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 100(3), 215–224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2007.10.002
- Roscoe, R. D., & Chi, M. T. H. (2008). Tutor learning: The role of explaining and responding to questions. Instructional Science, 36(4), 321–350. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-007-9034-5
- Vasquez, A. C., Patall, E. A., Fong, C. J., Corrigan, A. S., & Pine, L. (2016). Parent autonomy support, academic achievement, and psychosocial functioning: A meta-analysis of research. Educational Psychology Review, 28(3), 605–644. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-015-9329-z