(Big Sur, California, United States)
Schooling my son has been a varied, exciting, and sometimes very difficult experience. We have used many, many different curiculums and methods over the years. And, I can say, without a doubt, that Time 4 Learning has been the best, most stress free education we have used thus far.
We have been using Time 4 Learning for a full year. My son is in third grade. At this grade level, Time 4 Learning has Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, and Language Arts Extentions.
Pros: For the most part, my son is able to move through the lessons by himself. The lessons are fun and entertaining. I sometimes hear him singing along to the intro or laughing at the videos. He actually looks forward to most of the lessons and will do EXTRA lessons just because he LIKES them!
My son is, like most in his generation, a tech-head, so learning via the computer is easy, fun, and perfectly natural for him.
Each lesson only takes about ten to fifteen minutes, so he is able to do a few lessons in both math and language arts on his own in just a short period of time each day. I like that he is keeping up with the grade standards without sitting in front of the computer all day.
The cons: I have noticed a few lessons are too short. In other words, they teach the concept once, with one example and then quiz him. They did this with two digit multiplication and division and my son was utterly confused. I understand that as a homeschool mom, it is obvious that I will need to teach him and help him understand the concepts, but I would like to have seen a little more instruction time on these difficult concepts.
We do not use the Science and Social Studies in Time 4 Learning. We tried in the beginning. But, he was not able to read it himself (it wasn’t written on a third grader’s reading level), and we soon discovered it was too time consuming, dry, and boring. I am a firm believer in science and social studies being interesting and hands on, so sitting at the computer reading page after boring page did not work for us. The web offers so much incredible potential for this area of education, but I have yet to see someone really tap into that potential for our children’s education. I digress…
We will use it again next year for fourth grade. It is fun, easy to use, and well done. But, we will probably use a different source for Science and Social Studies.
Hi there! Loved reading your review of Time4Learning! We are also a family of computer junkies here, so I can really relate to needing to find something that my boys (now ages 11 and 6) can really be interested in.
We have been using the program for 4 years now. I love that the boys, even the youngest one, can sit down and log in without help. I’m there if they need me, but I’m not necessarily tied to them.
I don’t feel like the Science or Social Studies is bad or anything…but to be completely honest, we do SO much science (my boys are planning on becoming the next Mythbusters) and history/geography stuff around here, they don’t mind those lessons.
Again, loved reading your review! 🙂
My family has been using T4L for several years now, and I really appreciated your honest review of the program.
You mentioned your son had trouble reading some of the science and social studies lessons, and I just wanted to mention that my 4th grader is dyslexic and has a lot of trouble with reading these too.
We’ve discovered that by clicking on the speaker/sound icon on the lesson page itself, there’s an option for the program to read the words aloud to your child. There’s a little parrot that appears on the screen, and you can click and drag the parrot to whatever you want him to read to you. He’ll even read full paragrapghs! This has helped my son tremendously!
I hope you find that useful. Again, thanks for sharing!
We used Time for Learning with my dyslexic/dysgraphic son for 2nd grade. He blew through the entire curriculum in 3 and a half months. He loved it, and many times I had to force him to get off the computer to do other things. I do believe that there needed to be more depth, and more review, in my opinion, but overall it was a great experience and I was happy with the results.
My son enjoyed it so much that he was excited to use it again for 3rd grade (although I intended to supplement, too). He loved how independently he could function and found the cartoon characters engaging and the explanations very clear. I started homeschooling my 6th grader, too, that year, so I signed her up for the same system but at the 6th grade level.
We were all disappointed with the 3rd and 6th grade level material, though, and after a couple of months, we cancelled. Curriculum is erratic. Some concepts are taught in a bit of depth and some are barely glossed over before you test. Some explanations are very clear and well laid out. Some are appallingly poor. Some text-based explanations are written at grade level, some are written for a much younger child and some are written above grade level. Science was frequently dull and math was confusing or boring or poorly reviewed. Both children found the curriculum frustrating and irritating on a regular basis. If your child were to move back into a standard school setting, I fear they would underperform in many areas because they simply won’t have been exposed to a concept in enough detail.
I hear that Time for Learning is adding a high school level, now. Hopefully, they will revamp the system and make it more even, with more depth, so that homeschooling families can use it with confidence all the way through High School. It is a great idea. The execution just needs some tweaking.
This was incredibly helpful. I Need to know the pros of a program, yes, but I don’t normally find someone willing to thoroughly communicate the shortcomings. I appreciate your insights and time.