IXL Math and Language Arts Online Review

 Our family have the opportunity to review IXL Math and IXL Language Arts from IXL. We were given access to their online program for a full year for up to five students. I used the program with my two oldest sons ages 8 and 6 - grades 1st and 3rd. 

Often, students need practice in order to learn new skills. ”Practice makes progress” and IXL gives students the opportunity to practice Math and Language Arts skills in order to become proficient in them. IXL offers distraction-free online learning for students who need a little extra time to grasp new concepts, or perhaps want to test their own skills. 
The IXL program specializing in Math and Language Arts for students in K-12. Online Math is for Pre-K through Pre-calculus and Language Arts is for grades 2 through 8.  The program is aligned to state standards (you choose your state when you sign up) along with Common Core standards.  IXL does not teach, rather it's function is to review.  If the student gets a problem wrong, IXL will work through the problem with them.  But the focus is on practice, not learning new skills.

 IXL provides right and left brained content, an online environment free from distractions, and a reward system to encourages your students to succeed. Online reports and weekly emails will keep you up to date on your children's progress.

     For each grade level in, Language Arts and Math, the website shows a list of skills that are organized by topic. Your students can pick a topic and answer a series of questions that increase in difficulty. It is assumed that your student already knows the material when you start, however, when a wrong answer is given, IXL shows student what the right answer is, and WHY it is the correct choice. More questions for that skill will follow to ensure that the student has now mastered that skill.

IXL keeps track of your students' scores for each thing that they have worked on. Scores increase with each correct answer and decrease with each incorrect answer. Students have to work harder to bring scores back up, but they still have the opportunity to reach a score of 100% which will earn them a gold ribbon. 

Pricing for family memberships starts at $9.95/month or $79/year for one subject. Each additional child costs $2/month or $20/year. So an annual subscription for one child for math is $79; for math AND Language Arts, it would be $129.  For two children for math, it is $99 for the year; for math and language arts, it would be $149. 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. 

In the parent account, you can see what skills your student have done well with, what skills they’re having trouble with, and how long they spent on IXL.  In addition, you’ll get reports emailed to you for each of your students, and certificates of completion, for you to either print or save, your choice.  

IXL has math apps for iPad, Android, and Kindle.  My kids tried the Kindle app, however, primarily we used the website. The app is free with your purchase of the program, which is great!  There is no app for language arts as of yet.

One of my favorite parts about the program is the explanation when a student get the wrong answer. It's very helpful that my sons can understand where they got confused.  This was particularly helpful for my 8 year old because he is at an age where he would really understand and be encouraged to work harder on correcting his skills. My 6 year old was less enthusiastic about the program in general, he was too young for the English portion, so he only did the Math, which is not his favorite subject in general. He needed a lot of one-on-one support from mom to complete the work, which made it more difficult for Mom to complete this in addition to his other Math work. However, this is due more to his need to improve and mature in his learning rather than any deficit in the program itself. There were several skills in both children's grade level that were above their current skill level, however it was easy to go back to the previous grade level and work on some of those skills instead.

Overall, I think this is an excellent supplemental program for both practice and mastery of specific skills. If you'd like to read more reviews by members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew,click on the banner below .

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