IXL offers a comprehensive Online program for grades K-12 in Math, Language Arts, grades 2-8 Science, grades 2-8 Social Studies, and intro to Spanish. IXL is a technology company from its core beginnings. Innovative education is a top priority for the producers and it is shown in their dedication to providing state of the art online learning opportunities through their program.
The skills that IXL offers are based off of state standards if your state has them, our current state of VA does, they will be laid out and coordinated within the program to help keep your child on track One of the best feature, in my opinion, is the ability to work at whichever grade level your child is at. My children typically excel in Math and they work a year ahead especially in the elementary levels. Not being confined to just “3rd grade” Math concepts helps ensure that my children are being challenged at their individual learning levels. Diagnostic tools are available to help you place your child in the right spot if you need it to fill in learning gaps. And guess what!? They now have a complete Spanish Version of the program for native Spanish speakers.
For this review, we received an annual membership that I have been using the program as a supplement for Montana (12 years old, 6th grade), McKenzie (9 years old, 3rd grade), and Micah (4.5 years old, JrK) on average 3 days a week for at least 30 minutes a session. Memberships starts at $9.95 per month or $79. A year for single subjects, Math, LA, or Spanish. Below you can see the break down for monthly versus yearly pricing per month or per year. Each additional child is just $4.00 per month or $40.00 per year.
With IXL you get the following benefits from its program:
~practice that feels like play: gain a whole new appreciation for how fun learning can be! With the addition of the new IXL app you can take your practice on the go. A great feature for our family as we are in the midst of our travel season.
~ content for your right and left side of your brain: an abundance of questions for every learning style, students can't help but build lasting skills and confidence.
~ practice that keeps you within the zone: Free from gimmicks or distractions, IXL is a place where every minute is spent truly learning.
~ learning that sticks with you: practice environment that rewards hard work and encourages students to learn from their mistakes.
~ numbers that tell a story : progress reports emailed weekly (another favorite feature!) You also get an email notification when a new skill has been learned or the child hits a milestone.
Membership benefits include:
- Comprehensive coverage of K–12 math curriculum. Your kids won't miss a thing!
- Interactive language arts exercises for grades 2–4.
- Unlimited questions in over 2,000 skills.
- Fun and colorful practice formats. - Questions that adapt to your child's ability, increasing in difficulty as they improve.
- Immediate feedback and question-specific explanations to solidify understanding of each concept. - Audio for all pre-K to first-grade math skills.
- Weekly e-mail updates on your child's progress.
- Informative, detailed reports pointing out successes and trouble spots.
- Awards and certificates for you and your children to print out as they reach important milestones. iPad app for mobile practice.
Setting up our family account was quick and easy. Just log on to the website and fill out the parent information to create a master account. Once that is done you have the opportunity to enroll each of your children. I created a profile for each of the girls and my son and they picked their favorite picture to recognize their profile. I really liked this for Micah. He knows how to read and write his first name, which begins with an "M", but I think the picture helps to reinforce that this is his special account.
As I said at the beginning McKenzie is currently working a year ahead in math, so I wanted her to focus on her grade level math for a spiral review. Our current math program is quite comprehensive in my view, so I just wanted to reinforce the skills that they already learned last year to make sure they were solid. For McKenzie this means working on those pesky math facts and multiplication facts as well.
Montana used the 6th grade program which is the perfect supplement for days when we ran out of time or just needed to be out of the house. While she is not much of a computer learner and prefers our current book programs we use, I like that this option is available for those busy days. Overall, she has made many gains with using IXL over the last few weeks.
Micah is solidly working within the Kindergarten section and doing well. He is a different type of learner than his older sisters in the sense that he enjoys computer based learning, but can’t sit still for more than 10-15 minutes. He does however amaze me that he can log into his special account and get started by himself. He loves the short periods of IXL time and I love it because he is learning and excelling.
IXL uses the "smart score" system for its program to help with mastery of skills. Basically, the child starts by answering easy problems for the skill being learned. The more answers they get correct and their "smart score" will rise. If you miss a problem your score will decrease a little but you have the opportunity to raise it back up. 100 points on the "smart score" meter means that the skill has been mastered and your child would then earn an award. Since we have access to every level of the program offered, it has been great to have the kids practice a skill on something they are currently struggling with now.
What little kid or big kid for that matter doesn’t like stickers! An awards board is available for every level including the preschool levels It is a sticker based incentive system! Similar to a sticker chart that is meant to motivate your child to keep practicing. Prizes are given out for mastering certain skills which is fun and you can also get an award for the amount of time you have been practicing a certain skill or the number of questions that have been answered. The award section is all about trying to keep the children engaged and learning and quite possibly McKenzie and Micah’s favorite part. And who doesn't like stickers!
Overall, we are all thrilled with the content of IXL and what the whole program has to offer for our family. You can frequently hear my children exclaim, “I got it!” when they answer a question.
Company ~ IXL Learning
Product ~ IXL annual membership
Format ~ online or app
Price ~ Memberships starts at $9.95 per month or $79. A year for single subjects, Math, LA, or Spanish
Ages ~ Preschool through 12th grade
Our rating ~ 5 stars
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