Homeschool Happenings: Math-Whizz ~ A Review

I received a 12-month online subscription to Math-Whizz which is an online math tutoring site for students ages 5-13 years old. Whizz Education believes that every child deserves to have a positive learning experience and through Math-Whizz students are able to work at their own pace as the program identifies deficits and weaknesses as well as strengths for each individual child. It is recommended that students use Math-Whizz at least twice a week for 15 minutes each session. I opted to let my daughter use the unlimited access option and she used it between 4-5 days a week for about 10-15 minutes a day.

So how exactly does the program work to tutor your child without an actual teacher? Well, in three easy steps your child will be on their way to gaining confidence and academic growth.

Assessment - This phase is where the child will be evaluated to see where exactly they are grade wise in math. I was expecting the assessment to be fairly short but was quite surprised at how long the assessment part actually took. It took several days for my daughter to actually complete the assessment part. To say it was a simple assessment would be an understatement, lol. The assessment covered a wide range of mathematical topics.
Teach - Students actually have lessons just like they would if they were in school. After a concept is taught they will be given practice problems. If Math Whizz sees that your child is not grasping the concept it will continue to give your child more problems. Students can also choose to listen to the lesson again and then try to beat their previous score. Students can also connect with friends using the program or other students and challenge each other to see who can get the highest score. This was not something that would be a positive motivator or help for my daughter. On the other hand, some kiddos thrive on competition so this feature is pretty cool.
Report - Parents can easily log-in with their own separate ID and password to see how their child is doing.

Here are the Reporting tools utilized by Math-Whizz. The reports are very detailed

showing your child's up-to-date Math Age, Time Spent, Exercises Attempted, and grades for each lesson as well as time spent on each lesson.

Math-Whizz will send parents e-mail's if their child is having a hard time with a particular

section. The e-mail will detail exactly what the child is struggling with.

Topic Bank includes:

Place Value
Properties of Numbers
Fractions
Decimals
Rapid Recall ( + and - )
Mental Calculations ( + and - )
Pencil and Paper ~ addition
Pencil and Paper ~ subtraction
Rapid Recall ( x and / )
Mental Calculations ( x and / )
Pencil and Paper ~ multiplication
Pencil and Paper ~ division
Solving Problems
Handling Data
Measuring
Shape and Space

Within each of these topics there are multiple subtopics. For instance in Shape and Space some of the subtopics include:

Using the eight compass directions giving directions
Locate the position of a given coordinate
Recognize and describe edges of 3-D shapes
Identify simple nets of cubes
Visualize 3D shapes from 2D drawings from different orientation
Explain reflective/line symmetry
Classifying polygons by whether they contain right angles
Recognizing a straight line is equivalent to two right angles
Making and describing right angled turns

The blue shows the progression that has been made since the initial assessment.

In "My Tools" your student can access a wide range of helps such as a

calculator, ruler, pencil, currency, and a dictionary.

If your student comes across a mathematical term that they are unfamiliar with they can

simply go to their study and click on their Dictionary and look up the word and get great

definitions and picture examples of what the word means.

This is part of the lesson.

When a student gets a problem wrong a help box comes up to help them. In this case

the help is the contraption on the left side of the box where it has the student "halve this number."

Every week your student will start over with a new "Weekly Activity Summary" which

keeps track of the time they have spent working on Math-Whizz, tokens earned, and progressions.

From the parent log-in side you can print out certificates for your kiddos to

reward them for achievements along the way. Once my daughter hit the 200 minute

mark I printed her out a certificate congratulating her on a job well done!!

As an incentive and reward for their hard work, student's earn credits that they can then spend in the Shop. Students earn credits for each lesson completed, each 15 minutes they spend working on Math-Whizz, and then for each assessment taken. They can buy pets and they purchase stuff to feed and care for them. There is even a Halloween section.

There is also a Games Console section where students can play games with their credits.

Final Thoughts

Overall I was pretty impressed with Math-Whizz. My 10-year-old daughter gave this program five ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ !! Coming from a child who greatly dislikes math this says A LOT!! I would most definitely recommend Math-Whizz to others looking for an online math tutoring program.