Review: IXL Math and Language Arts

All of October we had the opportunity to review the online learning opportunities at IXL.com. We were very blessed to be given a year's access to their Language Arts for grades 2-4 and Math from grades Pre-K through 12th.


Family Memberships, for up to 3 children, for Math or Language Arts are $13.95 each per month or $19.95 a month for both.  The best value is $119 a year for Math or Language Arts separately or $169 for both subjects. (Single Child Memberships for Math or Language Arts are $9.95 each per month or $15.95 a month for both.)




When I signed up for this review, I had seen a few ads for IXL, but didn't really know what it was. I thought maybe it was an online tutoring program for teaching math and language arts to kids. After using it with three of my children for several weeks, I can say I actually understand it now.

When we first began, I set up our online account. This was so simple and easy that I did it in mere minutes. The next day that the kids tried it out, they each had their own sign in name and password. This made it possible for their progress to be tracked, and for me to look at it in a special "mom" reporting area.

After logging in, my children would choose Math or Language Arts to work on, by the tabs on the top of the page. Along the left side of the page were the grade levels available in that subject. After choosing the grade level, they could choose an area of study on a full page of choices, arranged by Common Core Standards coding. I am not pro-common core, nor does my state require it, but this is how they were arranged. Another option for how to reach the right topic would be to go to the Standards tab and they could see the standards for their grade (see photo 1, top half), specifically according to our state. Under each major heading was a sub-topic to be mastered. If the kids weren't sure what kind of problems the sub-topic heading referred to, they could hover over the title and a box would pop up with a sample problem. (see photo 1, bottom half)

Photo 1

The main thing I wish I had known in advance was that there is no instruction given. These are practice problems to complement the instruction you are giving your children. So if their curriculum is not aligned to state standards, you will have to work harder at finding the categories for them to practice in. If you are, however, teaching curriculum that follows the state standard progression, then this program is an endless supply of practice problems and opportunities for practicing towards mastery.

Correction Illustrations Grades K and 5, Photo 3

That said, there is a minimal amount of instruction given as explanation when a question is answered incorrectly. (Please, click the image at the right to see two examples, enlarged.) This helped my kids to some degree, but not as much as I had hoped. For example, Wyatt, being a kindergartner and a non-fluent-reader, would utilize the audio feature on the Pre-K and K level math practices. It would read him the problem, and he would answer. But if it was wrong, it has no audio selection for the explanation (see photo 3, top half), so he had no idea what it was. I couldn't just set him up to practice and walk away. I would have to stay close to help him understand his problems and mistakes. So, even with the audio feature, I ended up doing this with Wyatt every day. Mayda and Emma were able to work with it a little more independently of me, but not completely.

How we used it:
Wyatt used it quite a bit for math practice. After working with him in his math instruction, I would sit with him and we would practice until he reached mastery. He was completely thrilled by the "prizes" earned by mastering a skill or by passing a time goal. He would hover over the next possibility on the prize board and plot how to earn it.

Photo 2

Mayda used the math parts, but I actually signed up for this one with the intention of really utilizing the Language Arts for her. Since the Language Arts area ranges from 2-4th grade, I thought it would be perfect. Unfortunately we ran into two issues. First, since they don't currently have 1st grade skills on there, she couldn't adjust to anything easier if the 2nd grade material wasn't working. Second, the Language Arts part of IXL doesn't offer progress prizes (see photo 2 above) like the math part. Mayda quickly figured this out and didn't want to work on anything but Math after that. The quality of the Language Arts program was excellent though, and really showed us what we needed to study on more to come up to state standards. Here's a great video demo of the Language Arts portion of the site:

Emma is in 5th grade, so while she used some of the 4th grade Language Arts, she mostly focused on the 5th grade Math. This worked well for her, since her current math curriculum doesn't use a mastery approach, this gave her much more opportunity to master a skill set. She did really well with it, and was able to understand the "wrong answer" explanations better than Mayda and of course, Wyatt. For her it really re-enforced what she was studying and gave her a traceable place to see progress.

For myself, as the Mom/administrator account, I was able to see all kinds of reports (see right) on the kids' work. It seemed neat, but really the reports gave me very little usable information. I imagine the data there will become more interesting and relevant when we've been using it for more than 4 weeks. But of course right now most of their numbers have no history, and they have all improved 100% over where they were last month. The most relevant part of the reports page was the list of skills mastered or attempted, where I could quickly track their work.

Bottom Line:
If you are looking to assure yourself of where you are hitting the mark on teaching state standards in Math and in 2-4th grade Language Arts, this is a great tool. If you are teaching Math or Language Arts and really need self-grading practice problems, this is a great tool. If you are looking for inexpensive online tutoring in Math or Language Arts, this is probably not the tool you need. Overall, I liked it. The kids liked it on an off, but not as much as some of the other programs we've used before. I had to assign it, or they'd skip it. They never asked to use it on their own. Although most real school-work is that way. This is an amazingly huge supply of practice material, more than you will need by far, but only in these two subjects. That is the main reason I felt the subscription rates were a bit out of my range.

Be sure to read all of the reviews of this online product by visiting the Crew Blog:

©2012-2013 Loving and Learning on the High Plains. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://www.homeschoolhighplains.blogspot.com

*Prices and links are accurate at the time this is published, and are subject to change

Review: Bridgeway Academy, English 1 and 2 and Teacher Answer Key

Over the past 8 weeks we have been thoroughly reviewing Bridgeway Academy's English curriculum. We received:

• Book 1: Focus on Grammar $23.33
• Book 2: Focus on Writing $23.33
• and the accompanying Teacher Answer Key: $23.33

While these books are geared to grades 7th through 12th as a remedial course, we used them with our 5th and 6th grade students as a general English program and were very pleased. I made this decision based on the list of skills covered, knowing these were exactly where we were in our studies.

The books are divided up into units called PAKs. Each PAK covers specific objectives, over 3 Sections, and then finishes with an extensive self test. Each section is about 7-9 pages long including a 2-3 page review of that topic. The PAKs (units) are about 35 to 45 pages each, and there are 6 PAKs in each book. For our own school schedule, we found that 2 pages a day was a good pace to go through the book.

Book one, Focus on Grammar, covers:
Subject and Predicate
Four Types of Sentences
Sentence Fragments
Run-on Sentences
Compound Sentences
Noun Functions
Pronouns
Adjectives
Adverbs
Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases
Conjunctions
Interjections

Books two, Focus on Writing, covers:
Sentence Variety
Subject/Verb Agreement
Grammar and Mechanics
Writing Skills
Rules of Capitalization
Rules of Punctuation
Proofreading
Editing
Letter Writing
Business Writing
Study Skills
Critical Thinking and Reasoning
Fact vs. Fiction

How we used this:

After looking at samples of the pages (sorry, not available to link!) I knew that this was very similar to what Tyler and Emma had been studying in English/Language Arts up until now. I gave Tyler, 6th grade, the Focus on Writing, and I gave Emma, 5th grade, the Focus on Grammar.

Tyler and Emma jumped right in and had no trouble completing 2 pages a day. The first few pages in each section include a story or interesting narrative. After that, the book introduces the goal concepts for that unit, with examples, in a gray box generally covering half a page. They immediately have questions about what was just read, which can easily be answered by looking at the top of the page. I worried this would be too easy, but it really re-enforced the information. After this there is another gray box with more information, and more fill-in-the-blank-type questions following. The next two or more pages consist of practical application, for example, correcting run-on sentences.

At the end of the section was a self test / review where they would look back only when needed. They would then grade it with the answer key provided (while I watched) and then we would discuss the errors and fix them, giving a half score for the correction.

When they reached the end of the first PAK, we slowed it down to one page a day so they could do their best on the Unit Test, which is done closed book. I graded these myself and I was thrilled when Emma scored a 66 out of a possible 72, or 92%! About 80% is considered acceptable for mastery.

Tyler has had a real struggle with writing, as I've mentioned before. I knew he was worried about the title of the second book "Focus on Writing." It begins with basic mechanics of writing, like parts of speech, and identifying independent and dependent clauses. He was thrilled that a lot of the questions at that point were fill-in-the blank and underline the answer type questions.

As a side note, I've been researching the troubles with boys of his age and writing and had heard that with kids with dysgraphia do better if they do all of their writing in cursive. We hadn't pushed the cursive with him (aside from his actual handwriting curriculum) because of how much trouble he was already having. But we switched him to writing all of his work in this book using cursive, and have seen considerable improvement.

Back to the English. Both of my students are VERY different learners, but the mastery style appealed to both of them. This is amazing, as they can rarely use the same style of books. Tyler is a very auditory learner, so we did take a moment to discuss the gray box material before moving on. This helped him a lot. But aside from that, they really could do this work quite independent of me.

The self-instructed style worked very well for them, and the two page a day pace took us about 30-40 minutes a day to complete. We took our time, checked the work, and made sure we understood it before moving on. I could see their confidence build each day as they moved through it. The gray "teaching" sections were very well explained and gave good illustrations of the concepts. The questions, self tests, and unit reviews all brought the lesson home to them.


The non-consumable Teacher's Answer Key has a single page of usage instructions, explaining the philosophy and use of the curriculum. The rest of the key contains all of the pages of the workbooks, with the answers filled in. There aren't any further instructions in it, but the information is well covered in the workbook. For this reason, I only needed to refer to it when grading the self tests and unit reviews.

Bottom Line:
This is a very straightforward and well presented English Grammar curriculum. It methodically covers the concepts, and tests well before moving on. It isn't a replacement for the other Language Arts, such as spelling and literature. Even though it is marketed as remedial, I'd call it a lower level. It would be best suited for an advanced 5th-6th grader, or for a 7th or 8th grader who needs "caught up" on basic grammar. We really enjoyed using it, and found it well paced. At only $23.33 each, these consumable workbooks are a good value.

Be sure you read all the other reviews of this, and other Bridgeway products and classes over on the crew blog:



©2012-2013 Loving and Learning on the High Plains. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://www.homeschoolhighplains.blogspot.com

*Prices and links are accurate at the time this is published, and are subject to change