Thursday, November 7, 2013

Review: IXL - Online Language Arts Learning


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I had read about IXL.com a while back and was intrigued. They have had a wonderful math program since 2007 and have recently added in a Language Arts section. When I heard about it, I jumped on the chance to review their Online Language Arts Membership with Princess P.

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Their math program has lessons for K-12, but the language arts is still new so they only have 2nd-4th grade right now, but have plans to keep adding on. Princess P is in 3rd grade, but I don't do very much grammar with my kids until they begin Essentials in 4th grade. Because of this, I started her in the 2nd grade activities so she could get a foundation going before we moved on to 3rd grade. I love that with this IXL membership, you have access to all the grades and not just one specific grade. That's very cool! I could switch back and forth and when she mastered one area in 2nd, we could move up to that area in 3rd. 
After I had explored the site for a few days on my own, I brought Princess P in and showed her around. She was eager to jump in! Each section has a series of questions on the topic listed. The number of problems in a section varies depending on how well you do. If she got everything correct, it might only be 25 questions before she "mastered" it and got a virtual medal. If she missed some, it keeps asking more until it shows she understands.


One of my favorite things about this site is what happens when you miss something. When asking P what she liked about this program, she commented that she likes this aspect too. When you make a mistake, it tells what the correct answer is, but also explains WHY that is the correct answer.


This is really cool. See, there is no pre-teaching on here at all. It just starts asking the questions right off the bat. This confused me at first. But I just went with it and explained the assignment to P a little before she began. The repetition of the sections made her catch on really quickly. I was pleasantly surprised at how it worked. Any that she missed she was able to read the explanation and then keep on practicing.  Each lesson takes her less about 10 minutes (after the first few when she was learning how it works - she kept forgetting to hit "submit") so it was easy to fit this into our day. I only asked her to do one section per day, but several time she did more. This has been a crazy time of sickness and shortened school days (due to travel and our little guest's many appointments lately), so we didn't get as far as I would have liked just yet. I definitely plan her to keep using this until she has gone through all the lessons...I found it very beneficial and really, very little work for me, which is a plus with teaching so many kiddos here.;) I let her pretty much choose which topic she wanted to study each time she logged in. It made her feel like she was in control, and I figured I couldn't go wrong with any of the choices.
 
IXL.com has an amazing parent/teacher section going for it too. When I log into the site, I can choose whether I am me or P. She has a secret password that she puts in to get to her section and I have one for mine. From there, I can see all the same questions that she can, but when she uses her side, it records the scores and keeps track of her progress in my section. There are real time updates on what your kids are doing. I love, love, love that it shows me what questions she missed and what she answered that was wrong. This is so much better to me than just saying she got x# right and x# wrong. Now I have a chance to teach her more on whatever she missed, or keep scrolling and see if she figured it out from the lesson given when she missed the problem initially. There are bar graphs and pie charts and everything a good homeschool mom would want.

Check out both IXL's Online Math and Language Arts memberships and let me know what you think. You can do sample problems on each page. The cost of the membership is $9.95/month for either math or language arts or $15.95/month for both. Additional kiddos in the same family are only $2 more a month! You can also purchase the full year for $79/year for one subject or $129/year for both math and language arts (extra $20 for additional kids). I was generously given a subscription to both math and language arts but we didn't have any extra time to look at the math the last few weeks. Many other Crew members reviewed the math program though so please check out there reviews by clicking the banner below. If it is anything like the LA program, I'm sure it is wonderful!

A subscription to IXL is $9.95 for math only, $9.95 for language arts only, or $15.95 a month for both. If you purchase a yearly subscription it is $79.00 for either math or language arts, and $129.00 a year for both subjects. Each additional child is only $2 per month, or $20 per year. - See more at: http://schoolhousereviewcrew.com/ixl-review/#sthash.b19jNjBf.dpuf
A subscription to IXL is $9.95 for math only, $9.95 for language arts only, or $15.95 a month for both. If you purchase a yearly subscription it is $79.00 for either math or language arts, and $129.00 a year for both subjects. Each additional child is only $2 per month, or $20 per year. - See more at: http://schoolhousereviewcrew.com/ixl-review/#sthash.b19jNjBf.dpuf
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