Product Review: A+ TutorSoft, Inc. – A+ Interactive Math Grade 2

 Caleb just turned seven last week and is in the middle of first grade.  We have been working with A+ Interactive Math Grade 2 ($124.99) by A+ TutorSoft, Inc. for about six weeks.  I was a little worried at first about having him jump to the next grade level mid-year.  Math is his strong point, but skipping an entire semester?  However, my fears were unfounded.  He was able to pick up at the beginning of the 2nd grade level and hasn’t run into any issues of the material being too difficult so far.

We started out in lesson one with skip counting.  We learned how to skip count by 2, 5, 10 and 25.  It was a bit disconcerting to me when we would practice during the interactive part with the numbers 10, 20, 30, 40 etc and then during the worksheet quiz be presented with a question that said:  ”What number is missing?  8, 18, 28, ____, 48, 58.”  However, that particular example didn’t bother Caleb at all.  The second chapter covered place value, and I did end up having to supplement the on-line lessons with a few lessons involving legos and discussions about boxing up cupcakes. Once we did a little hands-on lesson his confusion disappeared.

Because Caleb is not reading at a 2nd grade level, I sat right there with him for every single lesson and helped as necessary.  Each daily lesson starts with a video explaining the new material, followed by interactive practice in which the questions are read aloud.  Questions are read aloud for the worksheets and cumulative exams as well.  However, the reading of the material moves pretty quickly and I found myself re-reading the answers and give him time to think when the answers were in word format and not number format.  We basically covered a new lesson, an interactive practice session, and an on-line worksheet each day.  Once we finished a chapter, we would do the chapter exam which had 40 problems and that was all we covered on that day.

Caleb really enjoyed adding this variety to his math routine.  We have used A+ Interactive Math nearly every day for six weeks, and while he was excited to switch back to his old curriculum every once in a while and work on easy stuff for a day he was also excited to open up the “computer math” as he calls it.  Math became his first choice in subjects every single day.

A few areas of the A+ Interactive Math could be improved.  For instance, the log-in process requires multiple steps and selections.  For children, this would be much easier if the act of logging in from the home screen would take you directly to the next available lesson or at least the lesson index.  Another place where more clicks than necessary frustrated us was in the process of using the interactive lessons.  First you would type your answer, then you would click on a frog that says “submit” and then you would have to click next to go to the next problem.  I think it would be much easier for a second grader if once you submit your answer you go directly to the next problem.  This was also true in the answer submission process for the worksheets and exam.  You had to find the right button to submit your answer (see screenshot below) and once you submitted your answer you could click next to see the next question.

I did find that sometimes we would get to the worksheet part of a lesson and find material presented in an entirely different way then it was presented in the lessons and interactive practice.  This didn’t happen every time, but it did happen.  Sometimes, we would practice using all numbers and then get to the worksheet and find everything was in written format.  Sometimes, as in the example with skip counting by ten, the problems on the worksheet were harder or different then the problems in the interactive practice.

My Bottom Line:  We will be continuing with our A+Interactive Math curriculum, but we will be alternating it with our old curriculum as a way to add variety and keep interest in math high.  I would love to see some improvements in the interface.

A+ TutorSoft, Inc. is offering a very generous deal — Get 50% off any level with  this coupon code: SPOFFER50

Disclaimer: I received A+ Interactive Math Grade 2 at no cost to me in exchange for an honest review on my blog as part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew. Here you have my honest review. I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC Guidelines.