IXL - geez I hate this program

[Anonymous]

I am a tutor working with students with disabilities, I have kids who love it and students who hate it (and then we don’t do it since it’s tutoring so we can individualize).

If you’re having to sit with him anyway, I would just do every other problem with him so he does one, then sees you model one, and so forth. I usually set it up as one of us is the mathematician and the other is the scribe (the person who enters the answers), which also lets me catch their mistakes, and then I just suggest that they check again before I enter.

[Anonymous]

It's pretty great for my ADHD kid. Instant positive feedback/reinforcement.

[Anonymous]

I hate IXL English. My HS DS had to do it for homework. It is useless without instruction first. School instruction was pretty minimal. My son felt punished because he doesn't think he actually learned the grammar rules being taught.

[Anonymous]

My son used to take IXL and he didn't like it that much so I am considering changing my kid from IXL to another program then I just found out that Kumon and Beestar are the choices. Does anyone know about Kumon and Beestar? Which one would be better for the kid at a young age? My son is attending grade 4. Your answer would be so helpful and thank you.

[Anonymous]

IXL was a disaster for my anxious OCD kid. In retrospect, I should have gotten an accommodation to use something else that doesn’t score that way.

[Anonymous]

I’d request a different math program that can be easily tailored to his accommodations.

[Anonymous]

IXL is a huge obstacle for my math-y, anxious kid. His teacher is willing to provide paper-and-pencil exercises when we ask for them, but her go-to is still IXL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a tutor working with students with disabilities, I have kids who love it and students who hate it (and then we don’t do it since it’s tutoring so we can individualize).

If you’re having to sit with him anyway, I would just do every other problem with him so he does one, then sees you model one, and so forth. I usually set it up as one of us is the mathematician and the other is the scribe (the person who enters the answers), which also lets me catch their mistakes, and then I just suggest that they check again before I enter.

This is a great idea! Thanks! Due to low grades, I'm sitting with my MS kid to do math homework from now on. I can see this approach making him much more willing to cooperate and actually learn some math.

I do appreciate the fact that he can't lose the assignment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son used to take IXL and he didn't like it that much so I am considering changing my kid from IXL to another program then I just found out that Kumon and Beestar are the choices. Does anyone know about Kumon and Beestar? Which one would be better for the kid at a young age? My son is attending grade 4. Your answer would be so helpful and thank you.

My kid has being using Beestar for like 2 months and he is doing well with it, he doesn't even like about studying that much but he seems fun to be on Beestar and his mathematical skills and calculation speed is quite improved after being on Beestar cuz I can monitor his progress online. It only takes about 25 minutes in a week on Beestar. I have never expected that a free program would work that much with my kid. Anyway it is good to give your kid a try.

[Anonymous]

It's supplemental for our private- it's worked well for our DCs 3rd and K but we also frequently supplement with just old-school worksheets that I find and print from https://www.math-salamanders.com/ - I find that having them sit w/ pencil and paper works better with some things.

Overall I do like it but I do agree that getting to 100 on some of the units seems a little much. Both kids enjoy winning the prizes and are always eager to see what they won and then update their badge/icon.

[Anonymous]

You absolutely need to tell the school that your child is not benefiting from this at all and ask for alternatives. If you don’t tell them, they don’t know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You absolutely need to tell the school that your child is not benefiting from this at all and ask for alternatives. If you don’t tell them, they don’t know.

This is true. I was sitting outside a classroom waiting for parent teacher conference and said something to my spouse like "let's remember to ask about the ixl stress." And a parent overheard and said "sorry to butt in, but my kid cries about ixl every night."

Pretty soon everyone in the hall was talking about how their kids were losing it because the ixl scoring system was causing so much stress. I was first into the conference and mentioned it to the teacher and then when I went out begged everyone else to mention it because the teacher sounded surprised that it was a problem.

[Anonymous]

Awful for my anxiety/ADHD/dyslexic kid and we also have No Red Ink. I have her do enough work that I know that she either got the concept or is so hopelessly lost that she's not going to be able to get it and then I do the rest for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Awful for my anxiety/ADHD/dyslexic kid and we also have No Red Ink. I have her do enough work that I know that she either got the concept or is so hopelessly lost that she's not going to be able to get it and then I do the rest for her.

Isn't the point for the teacher to see what needs reteaching? At least that's what ours said. If that's the case, doing it yourself will backfire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Awful for my anxiety/ADHD/dyslexic kid and we also have No Red Ink. I have her do enough work that I know that she either got the concept or is so hopelessly lost that she's not going to be able to get it and then I do the rest for her.

Isn't the point for the teacher to see what needs reteaching? At least that's what ours said. If that's the case, doing it yourself will backfire.

What backfires is having a kid screaming and sobbing every day because she can never be done. She has an IEP and gets really good push in services so I feel like they have a good handle on what she needs. We realized this was a problem after her IEP was finalized (new district) and the teacher was not willing to provide an accommodation so I'm just making it work for now.