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Kylee Strough helps her son, Conner, 9, with his homework Thursday night at St. Francis Xavier School.

Kylee Strough and her husband, Brett, can help their son Conner with his homework now. But the St. Joseph couple know that time is short. A day is coming when their only son will have to study on his own.

“We’re able to keep up and help him at this point,” Mrs. Strough said of her fourth-grader. “I think they’re learning things earlier than we did when I was in grade school. I don’t remember some of the things he’s doing now at this age.”

Kelsey Guthery doesn’t even think to ask her mother for help with her homework. The 17-year-old Lafayette High School junior goes straight to her older brothers for help.

“My finite statistics class, my math class I’m taking now, I don’t know if my mom even ever had that,” Ms. Guthery said.

Homework has changed somewhat from the days when Mom and Dad could help Sis and Junior with spelling and multiplication drills at the kitchen table. In today’s instant information age, homework involves more problem solving and reasoning than repetitious exercises, said Cheri Patterson, St. Joseph School District associate superintendent.

“We used to come home and write the continents down 20 times so we could memorize them. Now an assignment might be to go to a map and find out where the continents are,” she said. “Homework had to change because what kids have to do to be successful has changed.”

Fifty years ago, there was a finite amount of knowledge educators thought children should know and memorize, Mrs. Patterson added. But classroom instruction had to evolve as a result of the mass amounts of knowledge today.

“There’s no way to memorize all the knowledge the world knows today, so we’re better served in how to teach our kids how to think and problem solve,” Mrs. Patterson said.

It’s also a little harder on teachers today too, in handing out homework assignments. In the past, teachers more often than not just passed out mimeographed sheets of paper with assignments for the children to take home. Now, it’s more about research where a child may spend a few hours figuring out a problem by getting information from a number of sources.

“It was a whole lot easier to go to a Xerox machine and copy off 10 worksheets,” Mr. Patterson said. “It’s harder to evaluate students’ thinking, reasoning and ability to sensitize information.”

But there will always be a need for learning multiplication tables and how to spell words. That’s part of learning that is essential, Mrs. Patterson said.

“That’s static information children need to know,” she said.

In recent years there’s been a trend among some education systems on paying children to do homework and get good grades.

A recent Los Angeles Times article reported on a New York school system that rewarded fourth- and seventh-graders anywhere from $5 to $50 to take tests. It also listed another program in certain districts in the state of Washington that pays students for attending class, getting good grades and turning in homework.

Paying kids to do homework is pretty much a bad idea, said Ken Hines, a local psychologist.

“I am against it entirely. There is only artificial motivation,” he said. “I remember trying harder for teachers who seemed to genuinely care when I got stuff right, more so than for teachers who just went through the motions.”

But Mr. Hines said there are approaches that help show parents how to convince their children that getting good grades and doing homework is the way to a more successful future.

“These are called ‘Token Reward’ programs and involve giving the child some concrete symbol of affection and recognition. One of the ways is to give them monetary rewards. Another is to give them poker chips or happy faces or check marks on a refrigerator chart, all of which can be redeemed for privileges, treats or other rewards that are less expensive than cash,” he said. “Lots of people cut straight to the cash and reward grades and homework assignment completion.”

Mrs. Patterson added that the academic gain a student gets from doing his homework, and getting good grades should be a reward in itself.

“Learning itself is an intrinsic motivator,” she said. “If the homework is relevant and has meaning, you don’t have to pay them.”

Mrs. Strough said she and her husband often reward Conner for bringing home good grades. Homework is another matter.

“Homework is just life,” she said. “You’ve got to do it to be an adult.”

Alonzo Weston can be reached at alonzow@npgco.com.