TOS Crew Review of IXL

IXL has been an online curriculum that I have been curious about for a while and have heard and read many reviews on it. When the review came up for IXL for the TOS Crew I already knew this would be a good fit for my family. I received IXL Math and IXL Language Arts for a full year for this review.

 IXL Math is for Pre-K through Pre-calculus.  IXL Language Arts is for grades 2-8. IXL is available for either math or language arts for each subject is $9.95 month or a yearly cost of $79 per subject. Additional children are $2 month or $20 per year.

For more information or to purchase a family membership, go to www.ixl.com/membership/family/pricing, and select your preferred membership option to view pricing details. This is another good page to look at as well:  https://www.ixl.com/membership/family/subscribe/yearly/math

IXL can be used on a computer or you can download the app for your mobile devices.

IXL is a supplement program for practicing those math and language arts skills. With your membership you have access to all grade levels of the program. This allows you to adjust your child’s learning level in every area if needed and not just focus them in one grade level.

IXL Math and IXL Language Arts are set up by topics and grades. After you log into your account as a parent the child can log themselves in with their own password. Afterwards your child selects a topic the program starts a series of questions. The answered need to be typed into the space provided. 

 

Instant feedback is provided if the answer is either correct or incorrect. IXL also will give an explanation of why the problem is either correct or incorrect. The time frame is not set so you can practice for as long as you have time for. However the goal is to get 100% and every time an answer is incorrect the percentage goes down. Once you get to the 100% goal you get a star as a reward.

 

As a parent I can view the reports on each child. Each report list how much time is spent on each topic, medals that they received, and how many times a problem was attempted. Then you can see which area needs improvement in.

How did I use IXL in my homeschool? 

I used this with my son who is in 3 rd grade and my daughter who is in 6 th grade. We used this both on our computer and on the iPad.

My son is pretty good at math and at times I don’t feel like I challenge him enough in this area. With IXL Math I was able to set the par higher for him and then I could see on the weekly reports the areas that he indeed needed some more practice in.

He worked in both 3 rd grade and even some of the 2 nd grade level in both math and language arts. There are some areas that we just haven’t learned so I was able to adjust his skills easily. He worked independently in both areas. It got tough for him at times and he did get frustrated at times. That just tells me that I was indeed challenging him in certain topics. Little Man never complained about IXL when it was time to do it.

Bug my 6 th grader has some pretty severe learning disabilities and she had mixed feeling about IXL. She didn’t like it that I needed to help her a lot with the questions. Reading is extremely challenging for her and it got her frustrated to no end that she couldn’t be more independent with it. I would love it if there was a way to have and audible question option with IXL on all levels. I noticed that some levels have an audible feature. It would be a really nice feature to have this available at all levels for us moms who have children with learning disabilities. My daughter really struggles with reading and really benefits with something being audible.

She used the app for IXL often as it was easier for her with a touch screen. She wanted to do the same level that her brother did. She stayed in 2 nd a 3 rd grade in both subjects. Sometimes she ventured outside of those grades and worked at grade level.

Pros:

*It is extremely easy to use and to navigate through the site.

*You can get in extra practice in those areas that need some improvement.

*It’s a great way to see where your child needs more practice to master certain areas.

Cons:

My only complaint is that I want an audible button on all levels. Other than that I have no other complaints with IXL.

I am pretty impressed with all the topics and the amount that IXL offers. This is something that I will continue using with my kids so they can practice both math and language arts.

Social Media
https://www.facebook.com/IXL
https://twitter.com/IXLLearning
https://plus.google.com/+IXL