Homework Help Sites

Best multi-subject homework help

Reviewers say B.J. Pinchbeck (BJPinchbeck.com) is a good starting point. This website has been around since 20-year-old B.J., who runs the site with his father Bruce, was a nine-year-old student himself. While some reviewers say this site is easy enough for young kids to use, others say it's better for kids in the fourth grade and up. Common Sense Media is among reviewers who rate the site highly, calling it "a no-hassle library of links helpful for quick questions and homework assignments." One nice feature of B.J. Pinchbeck is that students can e-mail B.J. himself with their questions. Although B.J. says he gets between 20 and 40 e-mails daily during the school year and tries to answer all of them, parents should keep in mind that he's an inspiring mentor rather than a professional educator. Still, Pinchbeck is a whiz with research.

The Beehive (TheBeehive.org), an information portal run by Washington D.C. based nonprofit One Economy Corporation, includes a homework help resource for grades K to 12. The Beehive covers subjects from math and reading to art and music, broken down into elementary, middle and high school areas. Like B.J. Pinchbeck, this site links to outside content rather than providing its own material. Top Ten Reviews gives The Beehive its number four ranking and an overall score of 3.5 out of four, docking some points for completeness and speed of response to e-mails.

Of those sites that allow kids to ask questions, most reviewers recommend Infoplease Homework Center (Infoplease.com). They say Homework Center is prompt in its responses, and often refers kids to sites that will help them find (and learn) the answer rather than just answering questions outright (this is what makes teachers and parents especially fond of this site). Homework Center also provides an area where visitors can search through previously answered questions. Reviewers say they don't always get the correct answers, but this feedback is mirrored in reviews of all these services. One reviewer says this site is particularly strong in social studies and English, but not so much in math. Fact Monster, Infoplease's colorful interface aimed at children between eight and 14, makes a dictionary, an encyclopedia, an atlas and several almanacs accessible together through a single kid-friendly search utility. Top Ten Reviews gives Fact Monster 3.5 out of four stars and ranks it in fifth place out of 14.

Cosmeo (Cosmeo.com) is part of The Discovery Channel, and is a comprehensive online homework help service offering a search engine, an online encyclopedia, tutorials and a separate math area called WebMath. While it's not free (*est. $10 per month or $100 per year), Cosmeo is organized and more slickly designed than free homework help sites, with more multimedia features and pictures. Susan Hixson, in an article for MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, gives Cosmeo a perfect five-star rating. One Yahoo! Tech review calls Cosmeo "the YouTube of Homework Help," and says their math resource is "nothing short of miraculous." User posts are generally positive as well, although a handful says they are unhappy with the company's marketing practices, which include a 30-day free trial that can be initiated online but must be cancelled by phone to avoid charges. Another downside is the question of Cosmeo's future viability. According to Multichannel News reporter R. Thomas Umstead, Discovery has cut Cosmeo's staff from 100 to three, raising questions about the quality of future content and support.

Best math help

Math is one subject many students seem to find difficult, especially as they move into material their parents are less familiar with. The one math help site that comes up most is Ask Dr. Math, a service provided through Drexel University's The Math Forum (MathForum.org). Students can browse through "Selected Answers to Common Questions" or perform full-text searches to find out if an answer to their question has already been archived. If not, they can submit a question by e-mail to Ask Dr. Math's volunteers. The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Edersheim Kalb says her pizza problem was answered in the Frequently Asked Questions, but she points out that Dr. Math is staffed by volunteers who may or may not respond to any given problem a student submits.

Utah State University's National Library of Virtual Manipulatives (NLVM.usu.edu) is one math help site that gets consistently excellent reviews. In an older review, Education World gives it A+ ratings for everything from content to aesthetics, and Kirsten Haugen's Tech Tips Page says if you use only one math site, NLVM should be it. Geared toward grades K to 12, NLVM uses applets to help students understand and practice math concepts. Topics covered include numbers and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis and probability.

Coolmath (Coolmath.com) gets a less glowing review from The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Edersheim Kalb. While she says she and her student tester were able to use the site's resources to find the answer to their pizza problem, she finds the design busy and distracting and the interface "not the most efficient to use." Still, she says her sixth-grade tester did enjoy the games. Besides math games, Coolmath has practice problems, a math dictionary and homework help extending from basic addition to algebra and pre-calculus. Common Sense Media gives Coolmath four out of five stars but cautions that the amount of advertising on the site may be distracting for some kids.

Best online tutor services

For students who need a quick personalized response to a homework problem, or for those who need more extensive or long-term support, an online tutor service can be a good option. While some tutor sites do include supplementary materials like lesson plans and search utilities, their main function is to provide an interface for one-on-one instruction.

TutorVista (TutorVista.com), which is based in India, offers online tutoring via virtual whiteboard, instant messaging and voice chat for $20 an hour or $100 a month for unlimited sessions. Students are able to log on from any computer and get personalized instruction from a tutor with formal teaching credentials and at least a master's degree in the subject. Tutors are theoretically available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, although some users report not being able to access a tutor when they needed one. Students can stay with one tutor for continuity or switch if they aren't satisfied. TutorVista covers a wide range of subjects including math, English, science and test preparation, and is geared toward students from K to 12 and into college.

User reviews for TutorVista are mixed. For every student who is impressed with the quality of instruction and the difference in grades, another is frustrated with connection difficulties and customer service problems. A common complaint about TutorVista is their problematic track record when it comes to issuing refunds. Several users report receiving monthly charges despite having cancelled their subscriptions and made multiple calls to customer service. The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Edersheim Kalb reports getting a hard sell and a wrong answer from a salesperson but excellent results once she was able to access the actual tutor.

Peggy Edersheim Kalb's experience with Any Time Tutor (AnyTimeTutor.com) was less positive. She reports having difficulty accessing the free trial. Also, the instant help was offline, so she got a correct but less helpful answer to her test problem. Though initially less expensive than TutorVista, Any Time Tutor's plans (*est. $1 to $4 per question, $18 per week or $63 per month) are also more restrictive. Answers to individual questions cost between $1 and $4 depending on the subject and the required turnaround time. An instant live answer to an accounting problem, for instance, costs $4, while an e-mailed solution to a math question in 24 hours costs $1. Any Time Tutor does have subscription plans ranging from $18 for a week to $63 for a month, but there's a daily maximum of 15 minutes.

Tutor.com offers two types of homework help. Their Live Homework Help service offers 20 minutes of daily homework help through libraries and is free to cardholders. Tutor.com Direct allows students from grades four to 12 to buy tutoring services for a fee of $30 for 50 minutes. Top Ten Reviews ranks Tutor.com in 13^th place out of 14 homework help sites, though, and user reviews at Epinions say the tutors had trouble answering more advanced questions.

Important Features: Homework help sites

Reviewers and teachers offer kids and parents the following advice about homework help sites:

• Always evaluate the source of the information you find on the Internet; a student's advice might not be as accurate as a professional's.

• Try to confirm facts whenever possible.

• Check for a date, as information on certain topics can change over time.

• Keep a record of the site URL and any other pertinent information about the publisher, in case you need to refer to it later.

Our Consensus Report shows how many times products are top-ranked by reviewers included in our
All The Reviews Reviewed chart.

# of Picks	Site
1 each	Cosmeo, HomeworkSpot.com, Discovery Education, Homework Central, Homework Help, KIDS, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ask Dr. Math, National Library of Virtual Manipulatives, Ask Dr. Math, B.J. Pinchbeck, KidsClick!, The Beehive, Infoplease Homework Center, Math Forum, TutorVista

Because homework help covers such a diverse range of sites and topics, there is no critical consensus about which site is "best overall." However, critics do consistently point to the same sites as either good starting points for general help -- such as B.J. Pinchbeck -- or good destinations for subject-specific assistance, such as Math Forum for math. Infoplease Homework Center is a good site for English and social studies, and lets students ask questions. TutorVista is the best of the online tutor sites, but both professional and user reviews are mixed, with billing issues a particular sore spot.

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