Clarendon Hills Library cardholders can take advantage of online classes

Clarendon Hills Public Library has added a new free service for cardholders, offering online on-demand tutoring, homework help, test prep and writing assistance for kindergarten through adults in more than 60 subjects.

Tutor.com was added to Clarendon Hills in mid-January and provides tutors daily from 3 to 10 pm, with no appointment required. The service also offers The Princeton Review and SAT/ACT Essentials for preschool assessments, practice exams, video lessons, and self-study, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Expert tutors at Tutor.com can help users solve a tough homework problem, improve their writing skills, study for a test, review a difficult concept, and more.

“We added this because we know how important academic success is to parents of school-age children in Clarendon Hills,” said Library Director Lori Craft. “Because this service is available every day from 3pm to 10pm, if a student needs help understanding a particular concept or solving a particular homework question, they have someone they can reach even if their parents are not home.”

Craft said he likes Tutor.com because it’s available every day and can be used from home.

“This means no one needs to take a child to meet a teacher,” he said. “I also like, if you are writing a paper or essay for the course, to post it on Tutor.com and have someone prove it and give feedback on how it can be made better.”

Online tutoring differs from in-person tutoring in that it allows teachers to work one-on-one with a child via text or voice chat and use an interactive whiteboard to share their work and ideas, Craft said.

“So as long as you have a Clarendon Hills Public Library card and an internet-connected device, you can connect with a teacher wherever you are,” she said.
The cost of the service to the library is $2,250 per year.

“Given the availability of seven hours of private lessons per day, this is a great opportunity,” Craft said.

He said the service’s newness makes it difficult to measure usage at this point.

“It’s new enough that we’re still trying to get the word out,” he said. “We definitely want to increase usage.”

A middle school student who used Tutor.com for math was impressed with the service.

“My teacher was very welcoming and very understanding about helping me,” the student said. “He went out of his way to help me better understand how to solve my math problem so I knew what information I needed to find and what I needed to solve.”

You can find more information about Tutor.com on the library’s website. www.clarendonhillslibrary.org.

Chuck Fieldman is a freelance reporter for the Pioneer Press.