Xtra math & MUS online drill

Here’s my xtramath story, for what it’s worth – every child different, but it really has worked for us sticking with it.

My DS 8 started xtramath in February and just TODAY he “graduated” from addition. Oh, the hooray’s that filled the room here earlier! Yes it was slow, and yes, there were times I thought it was a flaw in the system, so to speak. We actually started it, albeit more half-heartedly, last October… and I was so dismayed with the progress and confused by what I was seeing that I gave up and tried other methods, incl. flashcards and calculadder. But we kept coming back to xtramath for the same reason you mention — it forces the child to work on the facts he/she struggles with most. By February, I was determined we would stick with it NO matter what. And I really think the consistency paid off. When we got really committed and consistent, results started. At one point, he decided he wanted to do it 7 days a week (gasp!) and at that point it finally started making a difference. He really enjoys going into the calendar view on my account to see his scores and to see the days turning more and more to green. Seeing the reports personally really motivated him.

I hear you on the keyboard issue, and we had some bitter moments over that, but I’ll tell you truthfully, after my son figured out that he wasn’t getting to move on because he was slapping at the keys too much, he really began to take more care on the key entry. (he was really worked up when big brother moved on more quickly but in the end it made him all the more determined).

One tip maybe you are unaware of (I didn’t know this until recently) is that you can go into “program” from your account and change the setting so that your child has 1 or 2 seconds more time to respond before it times out. I think you select “extend”. I didn’t know this to do it for my child, but I’d imagine this would help a child to relax, key in accurately and lower the desire to rush to beat the teacher and accidentally hit the wrong key.

On the MUS drill, yes I use it — to compliment the xtramath. I will check out the xtramath report, identify the facts that caused the most problems that day and them go into the MUS drill and select only that fact and 1 or 2 other easy ones, as extra reinforcement. Seems like we are finally crossing a bridge here (and it was a long one) so I thought it was worth sharing the whole story. HTH. Good luck! Angie

PS- we also changed our flashcards to the CLE system and that seemed to provide major results, too. Both my kids enjoy them, the cards are divided up to be a very short drill, daily (not more than 10 or 12 cards, and you do it twice a day). Six months ago both my boys were secretly counting in their heads or on fingers and yet now the facts are really instant recall. Phew!

Just remembered something else. A couple of months ago, I came across this numbers-keypad thing that we’d had sitting in drawer from when my husband had his own business and we had to enter a lot of numbers for accounting. For the life of me I can’t think of a proper name for this thing, but it’s basically a little keypad device with only the numbers of a keyboard on it; it’s lines up the numbers as you would see on a phone; it’s a small rectangle shape and it plugs into your computer via USB. This is the kind of thing an accountant would use (but it’s not expensive!) Basically, because it lines up the numbers differently than across a regular computer keyboard it’s just easier to “move around” on it; AND, the keypad/touch is bit more hefty if you get my meaning, and so it’s easier for kids to strike the key, feel it hit down; having it as a stand alone piece, it all feels kind of …well, “contained” under their right hand. I was keen to get it plugged onto my computer for the kids because we’re also on Teaching Textbooks now, so, for the computer portion of their daily exercise, it’s great to have the numbers keypad very easy to use. I would never have thought of this if it hadn’t been already laying around the house, but it is pretty neat and really much more effective for entering numbers than a regular computer keyboard. Food for thought! HTH, Angie

I found my kids score in XtraMath were dropping – so we stopped….