From the website: “MathScore.com provides online math practice and assessment for students between 1st grade and Algebra I. What makes our service special is our ability to randomly generate math problems that automatically adapt difficulty based on performance, which enables every student to learn at their ideal pace.
The intent of MathScore is to supplement a child's education by making the math practice portion very efficient. The automatic grading should save every homeschooling parent tons of time compared to using paper-based worksheets. The only paper used should be for scratch paper. MathScore was not originally intended to replace instruction, so it is still expected that a homeschooling parent teaches lessons. That being said, however, every math topic comes with a mini lesson, and it is not unusual for a homeschooling parent to use MathScore as a complete curriculum.”
In the past several months, the Crew has been inundated with math products, primarily websites that provide practice through online games. As I’ve said before, math is not my strongest teaching area, so I’ve been thankful for these additional resources.
MathScore.com is not flashy and colorful like Mathletics or even the Quarter Mile Math software we reviewed early in the year. The screens are primarily black and white and no music or motivating (or distracting) graphics. Students are able to choose which exercise they start with, although the website recommends beginning with the CopyCat preparation exercises which allows the child to become familiar with the numeric keypad and increase the speed the answers are entered. As they complete levels, the website gives them the option to continue on with problems of increasing difficulty. Each exercise also has the option to print out the worksheets first, review a mini lesson on the topic and practice entering the numbers without actually being timed or scored.
Positives:
MathScore costs less than Mathletics… Additionally, it’s all online, not requiring me to load and run something else on the laptop.
The screens are very clear and focused on math, not on spacemen, princesses, or talking animals encouraging you along the way. For some this is a negative. For me, it’s a good thing.
Each day my child works on MathScore, I receive an email detailing their activities and what has improved or needs improvement.
Negatives:
Once the students have completed a level in the topic area, they are not able to go back and redo that level. This frustrated my daughter when her younger siblings would get in the way, hit a wrong answer, or distract her. She knew the answers, but the distractions or the time ticking away often caused her to freeze up.
The parent is not able to go in and adjust the amount of time for each exercise. I would have appreciated an option to increase the time allowed and then decrease it as they gained confidence and familiarity with the site.
Pricing (taken from an email response from the company):
The basic pricing is like this:
First child: $14.95/month
Second child: $5/month
Each addition: $3.95/month
That is what you see when you visit the Home Version signup page. For the first two months, however, the first child only costs $9.95/month.
When you start your free trial, regardless of the number of student
accounts you create, you get a half-month free trial. Generally,
parents know within the first few days of use whether they want to
purchase MathScore, so the trial period is sufficient.
Once you log in, you can also pay for a 9-month subscription that
reduces the price for the first child to $9.95/month. Once the
purchase is made, the new pricing is locked in permanently, so after the 9 months, you can still pay the new rate on a monthly basis without prepaying for 9 more months.
Another price option is a lump sum payment. If you prepay $50, you can get $60 account credit (20% bonus credit). If you prepay $100, you get $140 account credit (40% bonus credit). The lump sum payment option is most favorable for parents who have already locked in the lowest rate.
Finally, it is also noteworthy that you are allowed to freeze your
account when you go on vacation, then reactivate with no penalty. When you freeze, it refunds account credit on a prorated basis so that when you reactivate, you haven't wasted any credit.
Bottom Line: We will continue to use this as both my kids need to increase their computation speeds. I don’t have a good feel for any improvement in their skills yet. I will be posting more at a later date if I see results.
Disclaimer: MathScore.com provided me with a free trial period to review this subscription based website with my children. The views expressed here are based on our experience only. I received no other compensation.
View TOS Crew members’ opinions here.
