LearnBop (TOS Review)

If you're looking for an online program to help strengthen your children's math skills, (grades 3-12) then LearnBop may be just what you're looking for.  Today, I'm sharing our experience in reviewing LearnBop for Families, which is a 12 month subscription.

Initial set up for the site is pretty easy.   You get to pick an avatar for each student (bottom right of photo above), and pick a grade level.   Once you've set up their information, the system will have the student do an assessment to see what areas need work and then it will set up a "Road Map" accordingly.   It does not however tell you what they did right or wrong on the assessment.   While moving through the "Road Map" students will earn achievement badges (bottom left in above photo) to help keep them motivated.    If for any reason you find that the student needs to go up or down, you can change their "Road Map" at anytime.

Once your account is set up, your homepage will list a "Dashboard", "Learning Roadmap", "Progress" and "Achievements" across the top of the page.  Each student's will be listed individually under each tab, so if you click on "Progress" every student you list will pop up and then you just click on the one you want to see.

Your students progress is mapped clearly (as shown above) so that you can see how well they are doing, the percentage they have completed and achievements earned.      The lessons consist of video tutorials (and extra, optional videos if needed).   The student gets credit for watching the videos and then moves on to the "Bops", which are the actual problems they answer.  

To pass, or master, a "Bop" the student must score a 90%.   Oddly enough, the student can get all the answers correct and still not have 100%, in order to get to 100% you have to do extra credit problems.   This was very frustrating and it took a while to figure this out.

When working through the "Bop", the student is presented with questions, and either multiple choice, fill in the blank or line segmenting options to show the answer.   If your answer is incorrect you can then get a step by step explanation for how to get the correct answer.   If you continually get the answer wrong, you can click to get the right answer shown to you.  The lessons are thorough, and the explanations are clear and precise.  

However,  as with any new program (and the family version is new) there are a few glitches that are still being worked out.  There are times when the right answer is not available or is continually marked wrong by the system.  This is annoying for the parent, and frustrating for the student.   There is an option to report the problem as having an error.    Truthfully, this was a real issue for Olivia as she became very frustrated when she knew she was right and it wouldn't accept her answer, or when the correct answer was the answer she'd been entering, but it kept being marked as incorrect.

I believe this is an exceptional product that can really help students gain a deeper understanding of math.   It could easily be a stand alone math curriculum, or used for remedial work or to carry you through the gaps of summer vacation and holidays.

Single student rates start as low as $14.95 per month, with a family rate (up to 4 students) starting at $19.95 a month.   With a thirty day, money back guarantee you really can't go wrong if you want to give this one a try.

To read reviews by other TOS Crew members, click here.