Jen had reached her wit's end. After a long day at work, she used to look forward to coming home and spending time with her kids, even if it was just the time in the car on the way to soccer practice. Lately, homework fights had killed any "quality" out of the quality time they spent together. Jen's older daughter, Katie, had always had an easy time with school. She never had to be nagged to do her homework, and often didn't even need any help with it. Her younger brother Jeff, on the other hand, avoided homework like the plague.

Jen knew Jeff was smart- he could talk your head off about the iguana he saw at the zoo- but when it came to reading, he just couldn't do it. Jen would sit with her son for hours doing homework that should have taken 20 to 30 minutes. Spelling was even worse. They would study his spelling words until he could recite them all by heart. The next day Jeff came home in tears holding the spelling test, of the 10 words, he had only spelled five right. The harder Jen tried to push him to do his homework, the more upset he got with himself and with her.

I wish Jen's experience was a unique one, but it's not. Hundreds of parents come through our website everyday, often with a very similar experience. The top seven homework challenges parents share are:

1- Students do not bring home the right books

2- Homework assignments are either not written down or are incorrectly or incompletely written down and/or notes are incomplete.

3- Parents have to re-teach what was covered in class

4- Child was too embarrassed to ask teacher for help with something they didn't understand

5- Child does not understand what they are reading