Curriculum

Imagine if you would, a daily math program, that after assessing the student, teaches them math every day, in short sessions, that the not keen on math student actually enjoys doing?  An intelligent math program called the Smartick Method (or Smartick for short).

What is Smartick?
Smartick is an on-line math learning system that teaches your children math through exercises and math problems.  

Problem solving skills is a big part of the program, my son has learned that you need to carefully read the questions before answering them.  Sometimes the obvious answer is not really the question being asked.

When you start with Smartick, first you get to set up your avatar.

The next thing you is spend the first few sessions being evaluated.  It’s been a while since the lad did it, but I think it took him three days to complete the assessment as I didn’t make him do it all at once.  The program takes into account your speed at answering questions as well as correctness to help place you accordingly.

As you start and close each days sessions it asks you how you are feeling.

Each session is divided into two sections.   A section with lot of math questions.  No problem solving in this section, just math questions.    The second section is shorter and focuses just on word problems. 

A math question:

A word problem

A correct answer earns you a green checkmark.

Whereas an incorrect question will get you a red “x” with the correct answer popping up immediately.

To the side of each question is a graph bar.  This feels up with red if you answer questions too slowly, and green as you answer questions quickly and accurately.  The more accurate your answers, and the quicker you answer them the faster the bar fills up and the more ticks you get.

An number keyboard is provided, but if you don’t like it there is a settings board you can use to use your keyboard number pad. 

At the end of each lesson, just before you close it, you are given the opportunity to earn an extra tick by correcting all your mistakes.   

When you finish your lesson for the day you can spend your ticks earned in the shop and set up interesting things in your room.  My son spends all his “money” on feeding his cat!  🙂

As each days lesson ends I am sent a report on how he has done.

If I go to the report it brings up a page showing all the questions.  It will then show the question and answer so that I can talk with him about why he got it wrong.   The first few times it was problems he got wrong simply from not reading the question through.   It does have a bit of a learning curve as sometimes you not only have to type in the answer, but you need to toggle the multiple choice to get the right topic.  (I don’t know how else to explain that part as I can’t get a screen image).

As you can see here…one of his wrong answers he did in 13 seconds, I asked him what happened.  His response was “I didn’t understand it mom, the answer was asking for something not in the question so I just guessed”.   This was one of the toggle the answer to get the correct subject questions and he (at that time) didn’t understand what he was to do.

Once he understood the system, he found it quite easy to do.  The first section he would regularly get in the 90%, the word problems would be in the 80% range.   As he is learning to read the questions thoroughly his marks with this section is also improving.

 
Our thoughts
Both my son and I love the immediacy of the reports.   It seems the very minute he’s done I get an email telling me about the session he just completed. 

He loves that it is quick.   When he first started the program they kept telling me he was too quick, but the program has since adjusted and simply says “fast” for speed in answering.   The quicker you answer, the more coins you get so the incentive is there.

For the main questions he will frequently say “they should ask me harder questions” but for the second level of questions “Mom, these take longer.”  From the sounds he makes I can tell that they are making him think and take his time, and he’d rather know it, answer it and then move on.  This boy LOVES to do his math quickly!  🙂

My son dislikes the “how are you feeling today” section.  He cannot figure out why a computer would want to know that information.
 
Is he learning? Yes.  It’s good to see the progress.  This is an excellent tutoring program, designed to help students excel in school.   It improves their speed and mental math abilities. It increases their logic, starts them working with algebra, and gives a decent reward at the end.   

We only found one error in the program, which was corrected very quickly.  I have found their customer service to be outstanding.

The Smartick Method.  
Received One Year Membership
 Age 4-14 years
Works on PC, Android or Tablet.

Currently on sale!   Try it for the summer and see if you like it.  Keep math fresh with an program designed to keep your children interested.

 Over the summer my lad will be using this program off and on.  He has two other math programs that he uses as well and at the time of this writing isn’t sure which one he likes the most.  It’s a quick and easy program to use that will keep his math skills sharp.

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