TOS Review: TenMarks Math
For several years I’ve been hunting for a math program for one of my daughters that would engage her, challenge her and yet not frustrate her. One that would give her mastery of math concepts, yet not bore her with excessive repetition and at the same time be easy for her to understand. We think we’ve found what we are looking for with TenMarks.
TenMarks is an online math program that can be used as a curriculum or as a supplement to your current curriculum. The program is personalized and mapped to state standards.
For parents and home schoolers the premium program offers:
- A Parent Account—linked to an email address, the parent is given an access. The parent can check the student progress and make changes to the student program
- Parent Rewards—the parent can set up rewards. I have not used this feature but can see how this would be helpful to motivate students
- Helpful Hints—if a student needs help she has access to 3 hints per problem. Using these hints DOES affect a student’s “concept strength”
- On Demand Video Help--- Before, during or even after completing a worksheet a student can watch videos that explain the concept presented on the worksheet. Using these videos does NOT affect a student’s concept strength
- A Practice Environment—Students can choose to practice any concept at anytime. After logging in a student has a Practice Tab available. This is one of my favorite features of the program!
- Periodic Tests—Tests are assigned at the completion of an “album”. Some albums contain only a few worksheets and some contain several. A student may have no tests scheduled in a week or they may have 1 or more.
- Automatic Assignment of Worksheets—Each week, TenMarks will generate between 3-7 “worksheets” for your student. These worksheets have 10 problems each. The goal is to obtain concept mastery. If the student does not demonstrate mastery a “re-do” worksheet is generated.
What I love about this program:
- It focuses on concept mastery: Many of the multiple choice questions are actually testing understanding of the concept rather than calculations. The program combines the worksheet test score, with the number of hints with the overall test grade to assign a “concept strength” for a topic.
- Only 10 problems per worksheet: I like and my two daughters like only having to do 10 problems per worksheet. If the concept is an easier one, or one they’ve mastered before, they can do another worksheet.
- Practice Page: I mentioned above that this is one of my favorite features. If my student is struggling with a concept, I can direct them to the Practice Tab and they can watch the videos, get hints and do practice problems.
- It is causing my daughters (and myself as I help them) to think more mathematically. We really have to stop and think through the problems and use our reasoning skills to figure out how to approach the problem. I love this! I want my children to be able to APPLY the math they learn to real life problems. This program is rich with teaching application of the concepts.
We having been using the 8th grade curriculum with TurtleGirl and the Geometry program with BooBear. I’ve been very pleased and very impressed with TenMarks.
For BooBear this is an excellent supplement to her regular math program. Her learning style and personality style require a mastery based “camp out” style of teaching. TenMarks, though mastery based, doesn’t “camp out” on a topic and moves just a bit too fast for her for use to use as a stand alone math program. She really likes the program and has asked us to continue our subscription.
BooBear says:“It has only 10 problems and the videos are short so it doesn’t really take that long and using it with my other math program really makes me feel stronger in math.”
TurtleGirl has not enjoyed math. It is her weakest area. Most of our school battles have centered on math. With TenMarks, I believe we have found the program that best suits her personality and learning style. It moves fast enough so that she doesn’t get bored, yet it is mastery based so I know that she is really learning the concepts. For her, TenMarks is an excellent choice for a math curriculum. For the first time, this daughter of mine is willingly doing math and asking to do more!