A Mom's Quest to Teach: Immersive and Adaptive Learning Opportunities from IXL Learning

Finding an online educational resource is very important for many families. In reviewing our annual membership of IXL from IXL Learning, our family has found a program that is personalized for each child. "Adaptive questions" allow our three-year-old, five-year-old, and teen to work through the subjects and topics with which they struggle and grow in each area. And because using technology to learn is still a privilege with our younger children, they thoroughly enjoy using IXL in their homeschooling day.

About IXL

When you take a look at the website, you will be able to see that they offer skills practice for children in preschool to twelfth grade. There are a variety of membership plans for families including ones that will provide you with access to all the subject areas across all the grade levels. We received the annual membership so we could provide a review about all aspects of IXL which includes access to PK-12 in math and languages arts, to social studies and science (both for grades 2-8), and to introductory Spanish.

Your children can start off with a diagnostic assessment (which will give them recommendations on questions and skills to practice) or you can jump right in with a specific grade level or subject. As your children work through the different skills, IXL will offer recommendations for more skills to practice.

We had our kindergartner work through the diagnostic questions after a few days so we could see what other skills he could work on beyond those in the kindergarten level.

You can also take your learning on the go with the IXL app. We downloaded it to our tablet so that our younger children and I can sit together on the couch to work on learning and practicing skills in the evening.

Our preschooler sitting with me – counting to 3.

Our kindergartner working on language arts and math

What We Like

There are many things that we like about IXL. From the instant feedback for right and wrong answers to the fun awards and certificates, IXL provides great motivation. There is also the opportunity for parents to check on the number of minutes that children spend on IXL so I am able to check to see whether or not our teen has completed his assigned time for the day just by visiting the parent dashboard.

There are also many topics covered that will help us in homeschooling our children. One of the areas that our two younger children started working on was 'blends.' This was a topic that I was having trouble teaching them so I was very glad to find questions on IXL to assist in the learning process.

Please take a moment to read all the captions and look over the images I included from IXL. The screen captures and photographs really capture what is so great about the tools provided by IXL.

There are emails to assist a new member in using IXL to the utmost of its potential. Some emails are simply certificates for children who have answered a certain number of questions, practiced for a certain number of hours, or learned new skills. Other emails provide insight on the different features of IXL. Additional emails provide weekly updates or insight as to how to use the the IXL Analytics to help your children reach their full potential.

I could print all these certificates for our daughter if I wanted to – this provides great motivation for some children!

Our five-year-old's favorite part of IXL is getting the awards.

He wants to find out what happens when someone gets all the awards!

Part of a weekly update email on our three children

One of our younger children's favorite things are the awards. They love seeing what new award they have gotten after completing so many questions, tasks, or skills. And even our teen told me about all the awards he had received when he was using the program in public school. (He seemed a bit sad that he wouldn't have those awards as he was not using his public school account but our family one.)

Our Kindergartner is so excited when he sees his new wind-up toys!

Our three-year-old also enjoys seeing what new awards she gets when she completes a skill or task. Her favorite one so far is the flamingo.

The math awards are given out a little differently than those in language arts.

How We Are Using IXL from IXL Learning

Each child is using IXL differently in our family. Our teen is using it to help him primarily review geometry skills but I have also asked him to complete questions in the language arts section. Our three-year-old is working on mastering skills in both the preschool and kindergarten sections while our five-year-old is focusing upon language arts and mathematics in kindergarten and some science questions from the second grade part. And if you want to see how other families are using other subjects (such as Spanish or social studies), be sure to check out my fellow members of the Review Crew.

I can view each section (or even question) to see what our teen was working on and how he has progressed.

Most days that we use IXL, I let our kindergartner pick which subject and skills he wants to work on for the day. On a few occasions, I will provide direction (like when I was asking him to work on the science questions as we had studied solids, liquids, and gases earlier) but in general I am letting him explore. He is picking topics that are both easy and difficult for him.

One of the questions our kindergartner answers from the 2nd grade science questions.

For our preschooler, I am providing more direction as there are certain skills I would prefer her to work on each day. She also needs more direction as she is not reading yet. The great thing is the fact that the questions can be read aloud for learners.

Our 3-year-old daughter worked on many counting questions as she loves math.

Future Plans for IXL in our Homeschool

I plan on continuing to assign topics for our teen to complete as he works through his regular homeschool courses. I like that I can go through and pick topics that align to his regular coursework to provide additional review or "homework." I will use some of the kindergarten topics as review and then as an introduction for our five-year-old son. For example, as we continue to work on time, money, and fractions with our younger son, he can use those areas on IXL to help review the concepts. In terms of our preschooler, I will let her direct her own learning because we aren't doing anything formal for her yet. Since she is enjoying completing the PK math sections (count to 3, count to 5, and count to 10), we will let her continue to work in those areas and then encourage her to complete other sections as well.

I think IXL is an excellent resource for families looking for a personalized teaching tool for their children. Because it covers PK-12 grade in the primary areas of mathematics and language arts, it is very comprehensive. While there may only be other topic areas for 2-8 (science and social studies), I do not think that is hindrance because most of the time the two areas of concern for families are language arts and mathematics.