How to Help with Homework

In helping a student with homework, there are several things to remember:

• Homework has a purpose. If a student is assigned to research a subject and write about it, the searching and writing are an important part of the assignment. In many cases, learning how to find the answer is more important than the answer. Writing about a subject demonstrates how well the student understands it.
• Cutting and pasting is not writing. If a student copies paragraphs from a source without actually reading or understanding them, it is unlikely that they have learned anything. Increasingly, teachers can identify and punish plagiarism.
• Not all sources are equal. Many assignments require using magazines or limit the use of Internet sites. Use the best sites that are age appropriate.
• Don't procrastinate. On the night before an assignment is due, most of the needed print sources at the library will be checked out by classmates. With a few days notice, you can take advantage of the shared library system.
• Read the teacher's instructions. Then read them again.
• Help is available. Librarians are available via phone, email, IM and, of course, in person.

Library Catalog

Our catalog is available online. It covers the holdings of forty libraries (over three million items). You can request items from home, check to see if requests have arrived and even renew items online.

Some Great Resources

The following resources are not free, but access is provided by McMillan or state. Though we use the Internet to deliver them, they are very reliable. They can be found on McMillan's website at http://psw.scls.lib.wi.us/resources/

• Online magazine articles. The Library provides access to millions of magazine articles that can be read and printed out online. While there are also specialized collections, most students can use the General Search. If you go to EbschoHost, you can choose from specialized magazine collections of Business Journals and Health Journals, as well as Primary Search, Middle Search Plus and MAS Ultra - School Edition (all part of EbschoHost).
• Literature Resource Center  An excellent source for all grades, the LRC covers more than 90,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists and other writers.
• ProQuest - A newspaper collection.
• Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia
• EBSCO Encyclopedia of Animals
• Consumer Reports
• African American Biographical Database
• OverDrive  A collection of Digital Audio Books that can be downloaded to a computer, burned to CDs, or loaded onto many portable devices.
• LitFinder. Includes thousands of full-text poems, short stories, essays, speeches and plays. Also includes biographies, work summaries, photos, and a glossary.
• netLibrary  The netLibrary collection includes the searchable full text of over 6,000 online books.

Great Internet Resources

• Homework Helper - A listing of recommended homework sites from King County Library (Seattle).
• Kids Click - A searchable, browsable directory of resources for children and those who work with them. Entries are briefly annotated and include the number of illustrations and reading level.
• Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/ - A cooperatively written online encyclopedia. 
• Evaluating Internet resources - How to know if a web site is appropriate.