Help when they need it

Afsha Bawany

Friday, Sept. 19, 2003 | 4:25 a.m.

Parents struggling with their children's homework can breathe a sigh of relief.

A tutoring website offered by the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District is back up and running for its second year, and it's slowly catching on with schoolchildren and their parents, librarian Evelyn Walkowicz said.

The free online tutoring service (www.lvccld.org) is offered to students in grades 4 through 12. Students can receive up to 20 minutes of tutoring in English, math, social studies and science from certified tutors such as teachers, college professors and graduate students. The tutors are scattered throughout the country.

Walkowicz, who heads the library's youth outreach program, has noticed an increase in middle school students using the site. Her staff is also encouraging the home-schooling community to use it.

Walkowicz said if students are stumped on something and their parents can't help, the tutoring website is useful for them to connect with someone who can help after school hours.

"It offers an assistance for parents who are often in the hot seat. Parents are thrilled because it takes pressure off of them," Wilcowicz said.

She said teaching methods and the way subjects are taught now are continuously changing so parents may have a difficult time helping their children with new material.

Sandy Irwin, a librarian for the young adult section of the Green Valley Library said parents often ask the librarians if they offer tutoring services or know of tutors in the area. Irwin directs them to the website.

In offering the free help, she said, the website operates like a chat room, which a lot of teenagers are used to, so it makes it easy for them.

After using the website for the first time at the Clark County Library on Flamingo Road and Maryland Parkway, Valerie Gomez, a seventh grader at Fremont Middle School, said she thinks it's "cool" to be able to type in a question or illustrate a math problem and have a tutor type back a response.

Ray Leon, also seventh grader at Thurman White Middle School in Henderson, agreed.

Leon, who was having math trouble, said he logs on to the site whenever he needs help at the Green Valley Library after school.

The junior high student said he lives with his grandmother, who cannot help him with his homework. Even if she could, he likes the website.

"I think it's easy," Leon said. Leon said the library is quiet and helps him study better.

He started using the homework help website last year after he saw a poster for it at the library.

Logging on the site is simple. Students sign up with their library card number on the back of the card and specify their grade level. They are connected with a tutor and the help begins.

The website is accessible from 3 p.m to 9 p.m Monday through Thursday, and from noon to 9 p.m. Friday through Sunday. Spanish speaking tutors are available Sunday through Thursday from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Students who cannot access the website from home can come by any of the 24 libraries within the district and work from one of the computer labs there.

When Gomez typed in a request for help with geometry problem, the tutor online gave her the formula to do her perimeter problem, and Gomez knew what to do next.

"It's good," she said. "It shows you how to get your homework right."