There are plenty of things that I am good at in life. I love to read, and write, and because I am somewhat proficient in those areas, I have a decent amount of confidence in my ability to complete tasks that relate to those subjects. Math, on the other hand, is a subject that I struggled with during my school years. If there were going to be tears during my homework hours, it would most likely have something to do with Math. I simply do not have a mathematical mind. I admire those who breeze through lessons, and explain it as though it was a walk in the park. I've had some good, patient Math teachers, and I have had some of the nastiest, arrogant teachers who called those who had difficulty grasping certain concepts, losers. Yes, they did. Oh well, that was my unfortunate experience. But, as they say, I digress.
I had enough negative experiences in this subject, so when I began homeschooling my daughters, I decided that my goal was progress, rather than perfection. I have always tried to approach Math with a positive attitude, explaining the benefits of learning it, and working in short, frequent lessons. Well, as it turns out, my girls do struggle with Math more than any other subject. So, I am always looking for that Holy Grail of Math products that will transform all of our thinking relating to the subject. I was then very happy to have Whizz Education provide us with a 12 month subscription to their Math-Whizz program to review.
Think of Math-Whizz as your child's personal tutor. They say that every child has a "Math age", which is really simply the highest level that they are proficient with their Math skills. As with any other subject, their goal is to increase your child's Math age, and they do this through an interactive program that uses vivid animations, lessons, tests, and games. Before students begin the actual lessons though, it is necessary to find out where they are in their Math age. In order to find their age, they will have an assessment done. They estimate that the time that this will take ranges from twenty to forty five minutes, depending on the student. My girls were closer to the forty five minute side. The program does allow a student to stop and take a break during the assessment, if necessary. Their place will be marked and saved, so they can log back in later, and pick up where they left off. My daughters chose to do it this way.
The results of the assessment were pretty much what I expected. They need some help in certain topics. Going forward, the program, keeps track of correct and incorrect answers, and adjusts the lessons accordingly. This frustrates my youngest a little bit, to have the same material come up, but it reflects the concepts that need work.
Math-Whizz does make the work fun with very cute animations that activate and dance or provide various stunts and sound effects for correct answers. The main character is a professor type man, who encourages a certain amount of Math practice per week. Students are rewarded with points, which they can spend on different games, or by "purchasing" various treats and decorations for their personalized study room. Those are features that my girls do like.
We have been using this program for about a month now, for about thirty minutes a day, on average. At this point in their progress, both of my daughters have mixed feelings. My thirteen year old is definitely liking it a lot more than my fourteen year old. She, the younger, loves the animations and the rewards. Her study is getting decked out nicely. What she doesn't like is that when she gets an answer incorrect, or has trouble with a test, the same questions (meaning, the identical questions, using the same numbers) come up, with no explanation on what was done incorrectly, instead, they only give the right answer. She lamented the fact that after a time, she could just spit out the correct answer, but only because she had memorized it, having had it repeated every time. There is no explanation of what was wrong in the original problem. My fourteen year old had the same complaint. She had the same issue come up. They would both prefer a more detailed lesson provided when presenting new material as well, as they feel that certain concepts are presented with a simple illustration, but not much explanation in the how to's.
I do like that they tailor the lessons to each student's grasp of the material, and that they use so many fun extras, to keep lessons interesting and engaging. I think that I would say that this definitely a great tutor for students. For us, most of the material has been done independently with no problem. For those frustrating topics, I do sit down with my daughters, to give a more thorough explanation. We will be continuing this program along with our main studies because it does keep the subject so fun. As we head closer to Christmas break, you might be considering how well your Math program is going. This would be a good program to check out, so click on the links, and start a trial!
