Mathscore (http://www.mathscore.com/ ) is a rather intriguing website with a variety of facilities put together to help both student and parent track a child’s abilities to grasp the basics of his math education.
Upon looking at this site initially I was a little apprehensive as there were no funny gimmicks to keep my child entertained and willing to learn through this. After using the site for a few times I realized this is an advantage to someone who is distracted often by the gimmicks of online programs.
The program is basically a teacher in itself with worksheets being generated according to your child’s level or grade of math. This is determined by the parent entering the grade level upon registration. I adjusted my child’s level a few times to see what he could/could not achieve. We practiced with Grade 1, 2 and 3 levels of math.
The child chooses the topics he wishes to do a worksheet on and can review what is expected of him to do by looking at a ‘Mini Lesson’ or a ‘Sample Worksheet’ of the problems and then click on ‘Do Worksheet.’ This will then pop up a sheet of problems which the child has to complete in a certain period of time. The time per question can be adjusted by the parent in advance until your students are better at working the number keyboard. I had to do this as my son was frustrated he never got to finish the worksheet. His fingers are still trying to master the numerical keyboard.
He chose to do topics like Addition; Subtraction; Addition and Subtraction (mixed together in a worksheet); Beginning Multiplication; Missing numbers either in equation or answer; word problems; place value; greater or less than; odds or evens; money addition and subtraction (challenging for a beginner) and some graph and shape worksheets too. I think this is a wide variety for his age and I am pleased with his progress. He scored in the 70=95% range for most of his topics. He was frustrated with the graphs as they began to get more difficult and had less time to answer more complicated questions. Doesn’t life get harder as you get older? I thought this was good for him!
I received an email in my Inbox each day after my son had been working on this site and it gave me his results. I knew how long he had been on the computer and what percentage of time he had spent working on the math. They do say that at least some time is spent looking at the worksheets before the child begins to answer the questions. It is recommended your child begins with just the copying of numbers to get them accustomed with the numbers keyboard. This may have helped my son a little more perhaps but he dived right in to the worksheets.
The difficulty levels I noticed on looking through the site for the math problems range from 1-5 on lover elementary levels and then 1-10 on high school worksheet levels. I did notice that when my son gave an incorrect answer the program gave him the correct answer and explanation of how to get that answer. In my opinion that is helpful for the student to learn right away so he/she does not make that mistake next time. Another advantage of this worksheet orientated website is you do not have all the pieces of paper that are usually involved in a worksheet program lying around! I like that.
The basic cost per month has recently been lowered to $9.95 per month for the first student, 2nd student is $5.00/month, and any other students $3.95/month. This is for using on your home computer or in a homeschool situation. Payments can be made through Paypal or by Credit card automatically each month. A 9 month payment of $89.55 is also available, as well as the ability to pay $100 and earn about $45.00 worth of extra credit/time on your account. There are bonus’ to paying extra and bringing the monthly cost down.
Unfortunately at this time I am unable to afford any of these extras but perhaps may consider this program again in the future and in the higher grade levels for our son. It has boosted his morale a little knowing with practice his scores can get better over time. My son used Mathscore 2-3 days per week during the time we had to review the program.
My Crew mates at the Homeschool crew blog have experienced this program too with their families so don’t hesitate to click on over there and read their reviews too. Here is the link:
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HomeschoolCrew/752842/
We received this program for free and have reviewed this program as part of the “Old Schoolhouse Crew.” I have not been paid for this review.
No comments:
Post a Comment