Review: 3PLearning/Mathletics

Mathletics is a Web-based learning program that integrates both home and school learning via the Internet. It is applicable for both homeschoolers and public school students. It is a very well used website and available for people to use from all over the world.

Both the student and the parent are given sign in codes once you have signed up for one year at a cost of $99 per year. There is a discount price of $59.00 per child (valid for US Subscribers only and using a secret code for the Human Calculator of 9 to get it). Other countries pay the normal subscription price. The students basically are online playing all kinds of games or doing exercises that are reinforcing their skills in all areas of Mathematics. Their scores are kept from week to week and the parent then has access to see what those are and can analyze what areas the student is weak or strong in.

My son for example was really weak in fractions and geometry as we have not covered a lot of these in our math curriculum so far. He liked however to see his rewards. The students earns credit and can then build various characters or purchase ‘stuff’ to create and print off to keep as a result of their correct answers. It is not real money and nothing gets sent to you - just feels like it for the child. My son never really earned enough to do much with it. He did not like it when the timer changed to the next question before he was ready. This means he was challenged by having to give an answer in a shorter space of time than I give to him. The child can print out his certificates if he wishes to do so to display his efforts to the whole family (and visitors too).

The Grade 2 level questions for example are along Modeling Numbers-counting in groups, comparing numbers, patterns; Additions and Subtraction- equations, with animal characters helping along the way at times; Measurement and Money, Time, weights, fluids etc; Geometry, Fractions, Multiplication and Division e.g. groups, fractions, shapes and division of groups. The students can work at their own pace and if needed can take activities at a lower or higher skill level.

Mathletics is a really good program to support another Math curriculum. It seems to help students fill in the gaps that they are missing, reinforce concepts already learned and cements them in your child’s brain I guess. There are live Math challenges that can take place between students without the actual students interacting with each other directly. More information on that is available on the site (http://www.mathletics.com/).

The site is attractive to the children as they can see their own progress and actually get rewarded for their work. Each time they return they can speed up their answers and get more rewards that way.

For our family this would be a good assistant to our math curriculum as it would give our son time to practice his thinking skills for math and have access to the computer. He does have limited time to use the computer so of course he would prefer something fun. I do wish that I had given him more time during our trial on this review to practice. He does get addicted to things and then will not get off when he is supposed to and continues to take more liberty online than he should.
This program is available for International students too with special curricula for the following countries: Australia, United Kingdom, New Zealand, South Africa, United States and an International section for others. You can custom design courses with a user friendly ‘drag and drop’ Course creator.

In the USA it works out to be about $2.00 per day for the use of this program. I think it will be something I look into for the next school year starting in the fall of 2010. The overall curriculum covers Kindergarten through to Grade 8 in the USA (5-14 years old).
Please do visit the site if you have any more questions. I did like this program rather a lot although have others to review in the future too I am sure. I will make a note of returning to this site in the next few months.

My above review has been purely my personal opinion. I was given a 6 week membership to Mathletics in order to review the program. I was not paid financially or in any other way for this review. The TOS Crew also has other folk’s opinions on this product especially for those with older children. Please click on through and read some of those too when you have a moment. Here are the two links:

http://www.mathletics.com/ and

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HomeschoolCrew/745116/