Time 4 Learning Review!

A month ago, I was so super excited to get the opportunity to do my first review.  Time4Learning was a program that I had looked at years ago as a schooling option.  I am once again looking at other options rather than the virtual school that we use now, so this review could not have come at a better time!

For the review of this program, I was able to have 4 out of my 6 children use the program for a month.  I chose Cardinal, Eagle, Macaw, and Emu.  I picked Cardinal because she is the oldest and I thought she would be the most capable of expressing exactly how she feels about the program and be able to better explain things she liked or disliked.  Next, I picked Eagle, because I really thought that he may learn better this way and with his "unofficial" diagnosis of Asperger's, I was really interested to see how he interacted with this type of program and I thought that a lot of people may be interested to see how this program worked for him.  I choose Macaw because as an upcoming Kindergartener, I am most undecided how exactly she will be educated this coming school year.  Lastly, my little Emu....I choose him because he is a very eager little Preschooler and he loves the computer and can already navigate it on his own, so I thought that this program would work well for him.

Cardinal and Macaw logged on to the program, eager to check it out just as soon as we got the go ahead from Time4Learning. 

We started with a Language Arts lesson for Macaw.  Quite simply, she seemed bored, at best.  She did not complete that first lesson in one sitting, as she asked to stop.  I got the feeling that the lesson was acutally advanced for a Kindergartener, so I thought maybe she might be feeling like it was too hard for her.  I tried to find a different lesson, but since we jumped right in, I wasn't familiar with all the options that were available to us or how to find them.  We later went back to finish the Language Arts lesson we started and again, she wasn't too crazy about it.  The conclusion I came to with this first lesson, was that:

• It was slow paced 
• It was very repetitive
• The cartoon characters were somewhat annoying and I think that was a distraction for her. 

Cardinal struggles with Math, so I was very eager to see how she liked Time4Learning's Math and if it would help her to understand concepts that she has the most problems with.  As soon as we logged on, we recognized the CompassLearning Odyssey Math.  I had no idea ahead of time that Time4Learning used this for their Math, otherwise, I would have never had her go into the Math portion of this program.  This Math program is actually a program she has used in the past.  Unfortunately, she completely hated it.  After this first attempt to log on for our review, she refused to look into the Time4Learning program any further.  However, I will say that in the past when she used the program her Math skills showed much improvement and her Math scores proved it! 

Unfortunately, we got the chance to review Time4Learning during what very well may have been one of our worst months!  We don't usually do alot of school outings, but we had three within the first week of our trial, then there was Emu's hospital stay which has been followed by contant illness ever since and then, of course, our dog fell ill and died so we lost a few days there.  All in all, we have had an absolutely horrible month.  This program had to be used as a supplement to our current curriculum and with all that has gone on for the last month, we honestly did not have the time to give Time4Learning a fair review, as we had all we could do to keep up with our  current curriculum.  I was unable to look at the preschool or the 2nd grade level of the program.

In conclusion...I will say that from what I have seen, this program has PROVEN to improve Math skills for Cardinal, even though she struggled through the program.  I wish that she would have been willing to look at the program for other subjects!  I am very disappointed that I was not able to look more in depth at what Time4Learning has to offer!  I will say it is not for everyone.  It may work for one child in your family, but not for another...I think this would be the case in my own family.  I can see this program working for one or more of my children, and wish that we would have had longer to look at it.  I would highly recommend trying a demo for yourself.

Thank you Time4Learning for giving me this opportunity to try your program.