Starting

I called up my Startalittle, who suggested:

1. Make a plan in your head of how you will do the job.
2. Make a list of several things you will need to do at the beginning.
3. Collect ideas about how other people do a job like this.

My Explorer liked the third item and wanted to start with a search of the web. A Google search on parent guide help homework 4th grade got a thousands of results. I found some well-organized sites with content-specific material. The material looked useful. It included reasonable suggestions about games and other activities. (Un: It also looked like a lot of work.)

My impression at this point is that a parent could find plenty of content-specific material. On the other hand, parents would not easily find help on the development of metacognitive skills presented in the Thinkerer.
To narrow down the search, I limited it to .org and added the terms: “cognitive psychology” “study skills” strategy. I also did a search though research materials with Google scholar, using the same terms.
Perhaps the most strongly related item I found was

http://www.seameo-innotech.org/training/compete/higher%20thinking%20skills.pdf
This is a 46 page document that appears to be an instructional module for teacher education.
Title: Higher Thinking Skills
Objectives: After studying this module, you should be able to:
• analyze and explain your thinking process;
• demonstrate curiosity and inquisitiveness in your daily life;
• identify, analyze and find solutions to problems and issues using critical and creative thinking;
and
• practice independent thinking and action.

I found other material for teachers that is supposed to improve their thinking skills, apparently with the expectation that they will transfer some of those skills to their students. I also found an instructional system with classroom materials that has objectives:

Enhancement of learning and thinking skills by correction of specific deficient cognitive and metacognitive functions to increase achievement.
Enhancement of self-concept and intrinsic motivation to learn and solve problems.
http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/ie/hur.htm

More search is needed, but my impression is that parents would not easily find help in fostering metacognitive objectives. An obvious and standard metacognitive objective is reading comprehension. I will have to do some further searching to see what is available for parents on this topic. But I think it will be useful to look into the metacognition of reading comprehension and the tools that exist or might be developed to help parents.