Plan ahead to reduce homework time every night. Purchase a small notebook for your child to organize all his or her homework assignments in. This can be a plain notebook or a dated assignment schedule. Instead of searching for scraps of paper and worksheets in his or her backpack, the assignment notebook will be easy to find. Have your child write down every assignment for one day on one sheet in the notebook.
Make a rule about when homework will be completed: directly after getting home, at 4:00 pm, or immediately following dinner. A precise time to do homework will reduce complaints and thus reduce the amount of time it takes to get it done. Be sure to enforce the time rule and make adjustments very rarely.
Take all homework assignments out of the backpack and pile them up in the order in which they should be completed. This will reduce time spent finding the next assignment or trying to decide which one should be completed next. Make a habit of the order of homework to reduce time: math first, language arts next, and reading at the end. Let your child come up with the order and then enforce that order every day.
Encourage fast homework completion by rewarding your child for getting the work done in a certain amount of time. Before beginning this reward system, discuss it with the child. You can use computer or video game time as a reward, or use a point system that can be exchanged for toys, fun outings, or other positive things. For example, if your child finished twenty math problems in five minutes, they get one point. Three points can be traded in for a new matchbox car. Make working fast worth their while. Use a timer and make it like a game.
Monitor your child when they do their homework. Devise a signal to use if you notice their attention straying from the task at hand: a tap on the table or a funny sound will train their attention on the homework without stressful nagging and yelling. Staying nearby while they are working is also useful if they need help with their homework.
Put the homework, book, or folder directly into the child's backpack or school bag as soon as it is complete. Not only will this get rid of any lost homework problems, it will give the child a visual encouragement that he or she is getting things done as the pile of homework gets shorter.