Do you have a student that adds or subtracts by counting fingers? Wondering when they’ll get past that? Are you as bored with flashcards and math drills as your child? Well, give thanks for the math facts game, Math Rider! What a fun way to get your young math students to practice their math facts.
What is it?
Math Rider is a downloadable game with a great story to get kids interested and keep them engaged. Your character is taking part in an adventure to rescue a princess. And how would one travel to save a princess? By horse, of course!
How does it work?
From the website:
MathRider’s unique combination of game play, storytelling and reward system, coupled with a learning artificial intelligence system ensure that your child will completely master addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. All in the one fun game.
Students “ride” their horse through a magical land, jumping all sorts of obstacles and answering math facts along the way. The artificial intelligence system keeps track of the student’s progress, noting what math facts are considered “mastered”, which have shown improvement and which need more work. A math fact answered incorrectly early in the game will be repeated at least once before the game is done. An incorrect answer will be shown on the screen and read verbally by the game.
Parents can check the statistics recorded by the artificial intelligence system at any time. It can be a great encouragement to students as well to see where they are making progress.
How it worked for us–
Having one that is still struggling to memorize those facts has been bothersome to me this year. More than once I’ve questioned my ability to teach, so I am very thankful that we have had the opportunity to review this product. Math Rider has been a much more fun way to practice math facts than flash cards. AJ8 enjoys checking her stats to see the progress she is making. She has improved almost 50% since beginning the program a few weeks ago.
To fit this into our school day, I usually use this as a “warm up” for our regular math lessons about three days a week. I really should have her do it five days a week, but we are still trying to figure out how to share one computer among three students and a mom.
Our Opinion–
I think this is a great product. I am always on the lookout for products that will help make learning fun.
Positives–
* Can be used for more than one student
* Keeps individual records for each student
* Missed facts are presented verbally and visually and repeated later in the game
* Engaging story keeps students interested
* “Rides” are kept short–only 30 questions each
Negatives–
* The same story-line is used on all levels
* The British accent was sometimes confusing (13 sounded like 30)
How to get it?
You can get your instantly downloadable copy of Math Rider from the website. The current sale price is $37, but that price is going up soon–back to the regular price of $47. Math Rider offers a 30-day money back guarantee as well as a FREE 7-day trial.
Interested in what other reviewers have to say about this product? Be sure to check out The Old Schoolhouse blog.
