Wednesday, February 20, 2013

A+TutorSoft TOS Review

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I have been looking for a interactive Math program for Selena to use on the computer. When A+TutorSoft, offered their A+Interactive Math for a review, I was excited to see if this program would be a fit for us. They offer both an online or CD version, we chose the first grade online for our review which costs $19.95 per month or $124.99 per year. This covers from 1st grade 1 of counting numbers up to Algebra 1. It truly is a program that has a lot of room for growth with your child’s abilities.

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Each lesson is presented in a very understandable way with a good amount of interactive time for the child to learn the concept. There is plenty of worksheets to be completed to master the concept, and they also offer the option to print out the worksheets so your child can get practice with the concepts in paper form. I liked the ability to input the scores from the printed worksheets through the parent/teacher dashboard which helps to track your child’s progress.

We were very excited to get started with the program. Selena did comment that she liked the work area since there wasn’t a lot of things to distract her, unlike other programs we have tried where there are games and cartoon characters to draw her attention away from the task at hand. Selena’s interest in the math program quickly diminished, I don’t know if this was due to an eye condition she was just diagnosed with or if she truly found many aspects frustrating. I do know I found aspects of the program frustrating. Selena often got frustrated when completing a worksheet only to discover her results did not get recorded.

We liked the detailed lessons and Selena had no problem sitting through the entire lesson listening and following along on the screen. Though she quickly got flustered when doing the worksheets. I think their idea is good, but the planning and implementation could use a little improvement. I know that as a first grader Selena is above level in math and reading, but to be asked to type out the large number words was more then she could handle. Had this been more word recognition of the number words and type the number instead of the word, I feel she would have been less frustrated. This particular worksheet seemed a little above grade level for a first grader.

Another area that frustrated Selena was the counting by 10’s. Selena is able to count by 10’s real high, and this might have been due to her eye condition, but when she went to do a worksheet in this area, it started out with 510 moving on up. Selena got upset and announced, “Grandma I can’t count that high, I can only count to 200.” I of course realize the idea is for the child to see the pattern and keep it going, but many first graders do not count that high yet, so seeing the higher numbers kind of took away from the idea of looking for the pattern.

I feel the navigation upon log in on the site could use some improvement, I know it took both Selena and I a while to click through all the steps to get started. They have a very good foundation and with a little improvement I could see this being a successful math program in our home. I would encourage any parent looking for an online program to at the very least try their one month free trial offer.
A+Tutorsoft is offering a great deal that runs through the end of March. Receive a 50% off your subscription price using the code SPOFFER50.

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I was provided this product free for review. I was not compensated in anyway the opinions above are my honest opinions. 
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1 comment:

  1. Hmm... The concept looks interesting, but the price is really high for an online program. You could get a full curriculum at this price. After playing with several online programs for a little bit I kind of feel that in our situation nothing would be worth it except potentially Stanford Math for gifted kids. I want to talk to school to do it next year through school.

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