Online Times Alive by City Creek Press, Inc. ~~ A New TOS Review!!

Multiplication facts are one of THE most imprtant things a student learns in the elementary years. So why make it boring when you can learn math tables the fun way by using an Online Times Alive subscription from by City Creek Press, Inc.!  Since my son, Seanan, has struggled to really memorize his facts I was hoping that the 6 month subscription we received to review the Online Times Alive program would really cement the facts by using the songs and dittys to spark his memory every time he came across one of the harder facts he struggles to KNOW.

Online Times Alive program focuses on teaching your child their multiplication facts from 0 - 9 by using a variety of silly songs, stories, and cartoons to make learning their facts fun. It also uses both visual clues in the cartoons and stories along with mnemonic devices to help cement the facts into the child's memory. The stories use characters that are made to look like the number they are trying to memorize.

visual clues for 6x6 with song words on top

the answer is silly too (thirsty sixes)

He's enjoying the songsand cartoons.

So how does it work? First you login to the program. One word of caution, make sure your child logs in the same way every time. If your child uses a capital letter for the first letter and the rest are in lowercase and the next time they are all lowercase it will appear that your child has no progress. That happened a few times to my son. The program is very easy to use and once it's saved or bookmarked most children can find and use the site all on their own. So I wasn't aware that he was having some issues remembering his original login. Once we figured that out we were able to see his actual progress and he didn't feel like he was always going back to the beginning to start the lessons again.

taking the initial test

As soon as you login you see the lesson list. Here is my son's the last time I remembered to catach a screen shot.

Lesson list that you see when you login.

You can see in each of the lessons there is variety. Along the way there are also some timed tests or quiz so that progress can be assessed.

quiz

progress report with the quiz grade

As you can see it is very visual and because of this holds the attention of your student. However, I don't think it should be done just one time through. There is a way to "clear" the tests and quizzes. I might have to do that again once we get to the end, which we are almost there, because I feel my son is still struggling with a few facts - like 6x7 or 7x8. Others he has solidly.

progress report

The online subscription is just $9.95 a month which is a great price since you can use it for all your children as long as they are using it on the SAME computer. There is also a $6.95 one time sign up fee.  I found a coupon code that you can use to waive the sign up fee - use the code lovetolearn

Here's a little video to show you a little more about the program.

You can also find City Creek Press, Inc. on Facebook, You Tube, and Instagram.

I also encourage you to check out the other reviews from our Homeschool Review Crew by clicking the link below. Some of them even reviewed the Times Alive App which allows you to take learning on the go!

Dyslexia Gold ~~ A New TOS Review!

Since I have a feeling that my two younger children (currently 10 & 13) struggle with dyslexia and if not they are struggling readers,  I was interested in trying out the Dyslexia Gold Full Bundle from Dyslexia Gold. We were graciously given a lifetime subscription of the family licence for the Dyslexia Gold Full Bundle.

Included in the Dyslexia Gold Full Bundle is all four parts of the program: Engaging Eyes, Fluency Builder, Spelling Tutor, and Times Table Tutor. This program is not a learn to read program, but designed more for those who know how to read but are still struggling and/or are dyslexic. The aim of the program is to increase fluency in reading by increasing the students awareness and use of phonics; learn how to spell correctly; and to help the eyes focus and track across a page correctly. The program is designed for ages 7 - 11, but if you do have a dyslexic child this age range might be older. Dyslexia Gold says that in just 10 minutes a day using their program they can improve a child's reading age/ability by 12 months in just 10 hours of practice and play and spelling age is improved by about 10.5 months in just 3 months time.

As I said earlier there are 4 parts in the Dyslexia Gold Full Bundle and I am going to briefly tell you about each of them.

Engaging Eyes:
This part of the program is designed to help train the eyes to track across the lines of text on a page and help train the eyes to both focus on the same point. They do this by a series of games within this section. There are 3 games are Target Practice, Eye Tracking, and Whack an Alien.

The first game, Target Practice, uses 3D glasses to help the student use both eyes to focus and shoot the target. This helps that the eyes are on the same letter while reading as opposed to being one on the first letter of the word and then the other eye on a different letter. This would be very confusing and is especially for dyslexic readers.

special 3D glasses

focusing to hit all the targets

The next game is Eye Tracking and it is essentially just what that says. The student watches as the letters appear and all they have to do is hit the space bar when the see the letter 'b'. This is helping the student keep track where they are on the page.

The last game of this section is Whack an Alien, and I think it's my sons favorite. It reminds me of Whackamole at the Arcade, but computerized. All your student has to do is whack an alien when they appear.  This helps your child move across the screen focusing on one alien at a time to whack as many as possible.

only 1 alien left

Fluency Builder:
This section of the program also has 3 games and is really interested in phonlogical awareness.

In the phonics section the child sorts the words either by how they sound or how they are spelled. There are 50 lessons and each lesson teaches one phonetic sound or spelling.

The next game is laser focused on knowing that a particular word has a set number of sounds not just 1. They use goat as their example -- it has 3 sounds /g/ /oa/ /t/. They also work on noticing the difference in words like hop and hope and that the middle sound is the difference. These exercises are designed to help improve any phonological deficit the child may have.

find the letters to spell the word

The last "game" is just a non-fiction reading passage that teaches new vocabulary. It may be an easy or harder passage. The goal is to read it 4 times in 2 days to help build fluency. Any word the child does not know can be clicked on and the computer reads that word. This was a favorite feature for both my users because they get very frustrated when they come to a word they just can't decipher. Having the ability to click on the word, hear it, repeat it and then move on reading has definitely helped their reading to become more fluent and less choppy.

3 levels that the passages can be set at

reading the passage aloud

You can click the links to learn more about how each of these sections of the program work and even the science behind the program.

Spelling Tutor:
Here the child will learn how to spell the 1,000 most common words. It will also help improve spelling in general. This is for all children who need spelling help, not just those who are dyslexic. From your child's mistakes the tutor decides which words they need to be tested on and are tested over and over with larger gaps in the testing to help put the words from short term memory into long term memory.

The next section in the tutor is writing of the words. The tutor dictates the words to the student as they write them in their own notebook both as individual words and in sentences.

You can choose an American or English spelling for the words and you can choose it to be an English, American, Scottish, or Australian pronounciation. Click the link if you want to learn more about how this works.

Now on to how we used the program.  When you first start with Engaging Eyes you will need to calibrate the monitor so it can work properly with the 3D image. It looks like a muted grey, blue, and red target and when the child has the special 3D glasses on they should be able to see 2 circles. They have to move their cursor to shoot both of the circles. At least this is the explanation I received from my two testers.

What the screen looks like WITHOUT the glasses

My daughter, who is more plagued by dyslexia, was able to do this and go through the levels much faster than her brother. He had a hard time and finally after a while his sister helped him to understand what he was supposed to be doing. The one problem both of them had with this particular game was they complained of their head hurting. This could be because of the eye strain and retraining your eyes to work together. it could also be because they wear glasses (my son does for computer work and reading, my daughter wears them all the time) and they were trying to keep the glasses on the right way while wearing them. I'm not sure, but we did this section less because of their headaches. My daughter did this game more than my son, but she would just push through and then have to take a little break from the computer before going back to working again.

Whack an Alien was a favorite of my son. He'd race to get as many whacked as possible. For the Eye Tracking section, I'm not sure either of mine have encountered that yet. They usually work on the programs on their own.

In the Fluency Builder my daughter has really enjoyed this section. She says it has helped her in her reading. My son really doesn't like to read and reading the passages sometimes takes him a long time and then his frustration comes out.

Fluency Builder results

For Spelling Tutor my daughter did this more than my son because he is still struggling on basic phonics sounds so spelling words and sentences would have been way harder for him. My daughter on the other hand, didn't like it, but understood it's purpose was to help her be a better speller.

Spelling tutor report

She would have to listen to the word or sentence being said and then write them down. This would help build retention and focus. She then marks her own work. This is accountability and keeps a record of it on the papers that she stores in her 3 ring notebook. Once she knows a word well enough it will be repeated in the 'tests' less because the computer learns her ability and adapts. In the reports you can see the words learned and those currently learning as well as a sneak peek into what the days lesson will cover.

For the Times Tutor, both of my children were already proficient in them. However, I am having my son go back to use them after his mini pop quiz where he missed a bunch of the 9's and 12's. The programs goal here is to help them become quicker in your answer. The fact is repeated over and over until the student can answer in the proper timing. And since my grandmother-in-law believes everyone should be able to answer them in less than 3 seconds he needs to have these two familes refreshed.

1st day of Times Tutor

After using the Dyslexia Gold Full Bundle for the last few months I think I've seen some improvement. My son has not done as much as I thought he was and that is because he says he's working on his stuff and actually wasn't doing it all. But my dyslexic daughter has definitely been reading more on her own and at higher reading levels as well as retaining how to spell words that once were very hard to keep in her memory. I can't wait to see how they progress through the end of summer. I'm hoping by then multiplication facts will be more automatic for my son and that they both continue to increase in their phonological awareness and more reading fluency.

You can find Dyslexia Gold on Facebook. I also highly recommend that you click on the link below and read some of the other reviews from other Crew members and how the program worked for them. And if you know anyone with a reading struggle have them check out the link as well!

Typing Tournament Online & Maths Ivnaders Online by EdAlive ~~ A New TOS Review!!!

Are your kids always wanting to play games on their phones, iPads, computers or other devices? Mine do too! So when we had the opportunity to check out two "games" that EdAlive had I jumped at the chance! We had the opportunity to try out and review two of their 'apps' in the library -- Maths Invaders Online and Typing Tournament Online.  I will be talking about each of the programs and how each of my three children used the programs during this generous one year subscription we have to review.

Typing Tournament Online:

It is a typical typing program to use all 10 of your fingers to accurately and quickly type. It is designed for ages 6 to adult and you can jump in at your own level from not knowing ANYTHING on the keyboard to strengthening your skill and increasing your WPM (words per minute). There are 128 lessons that you progress through on your own pace through a series of lessons, games, and drills. You are to beat the Dark Knight and you have to master your skills through a medieval tournament setting.

You start out in Level 1 learning the left 4 middle keys (a,s,d,f) and then as you progress you will learn all the letters on the keyboard. Each child/student gets to pick the words per minutes (WPM) they want to shoot for being able to type at by the end of the program (so my eldest picked the highest level of , my middle is shooting for 86, and my son is shooting for the 45 WPM range) and the lessons and skills taught help the child/student to reach for their goal.

Drills before test

Immediate results and encouragement.

At this point none of mine have made it very far, but I think they set their goals too high. The great thing about this program is that we can go in and adjust their goal and they won't lose their progress! That is very important, especially for my 13yo daughter who would get VERY DISCOURAGED if she had worked this long and couldn't keep the progress she's made.

The rate of progress is changed based on the end WPM goal. This is called the Multiple Progressions Model and was designed to help with the negative cycle of learning the same information again and again with no progression. Instead here the student can select their path of learning, access that learning path at any point, and then raise or lower their goals at any time on the learning journey.

Progress report

The hardest part for her is the test you can't fix the ones you type wrong, but you can during the drills in the level. She is thinking she is going to reduce her WPM goal so that she can finally pass. I have been letting them all work on it and then suggest they might want to lower their goal, but not making them so they can make that decision on their own.

Drill 2 - shows he already received his token, but they can go
back to do the drills again if they don't pass the test.

My son has worked on this as well, but with a lower goal. He likes that it's set in the medieval times. He gets to defend the castle and put our dragon fires! He also likes the end of the drills when it looks like you earn armor pieces!

Ari working on the initial lesson.

My eldest (15) has had some typing experience so she set her goal for the highest level of 108 WPM! I think that might be too hard for her, but as of right now she seems okay with her progression. I like that she can change her goal at any

Maths Invaders Online:

This is set up more like a cross between space invaders the old Atari game and battleship. It is for ages 5 up through 15 and covers the 4 basic math operations as well as fractions, decimals, percents, square roots, positive and negative numbers and exponents. The game builds quick recall for math facts by having them answer the problems before the problem disappears and they get "invaded". 

Being invaded.

Battleshipesque

Charge your scanner to scan for ships on the screen above (right)

You can view their progress at any time by going to the main menu and pushing view progress. Here is how you can see what they've been working on -- it turns from faded to a darker color.  You can see the progress here for 2 of mine on the math. There is also a worksheet generator that can be for a specific topic OR for times tables. This is a great resource!

Progress Report

Front screen

My son LOVES this game and tries to play it whenever there is some spare time! He loves math and loves games so this one has been a home run for him! He says he likes the battleship part where you have to decide where you think the alien ship is but to get to guess you have to do a series of math questions. And he enjoys the Galactic Campaigns and is currently a Level 9 Defender! LOL!

Space Rescue Map

Working on the game.

Got some stars!!

My eldest is working on Level 8 and it's a bit harder since it mixes in fractions and square roots. She also is a perfectionist so not being able to write it out and work it out on paper is very hard for her to wrap her brain around. It's been more slow going and she doesn't like the 'quick time' you have to answer the problems in, but she's doing it a few days a week. I suspect after some time she will get faster and the questions won't be as 'hard' as she believes they are.

Her math is a higher level.

You can access both Maths Invaders Online and Typing Tournament Online from any device and since it is an online subscription you have access any time any day! As a parent you can view progress reports and adjust the settings if they need to be at a higher or lower level.

EdAlive also offers a 3 day free trial for personal account or parent child account so you can check them out before you take the dive into a subscription.  You can also find EdAlive on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. And as always you will want to check out all the other Crew Reviews by clicking the link below!!