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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Sharing My Perspective Of Time4Learning

A year or so ago we used Time4Learning and since then we have been asked by a few who knew we used it what we thought of the on-line program. I'm going to share our experience and take this opportunity to review Time4Learning. Please understand our experience and our our opinion is unique to us and may or may not be the same for others using Time4Learning. I am going to share my perspective as the mother of a child who has vision difficulties. We began Time4Learning with the hope that this was just what we had been looking for. I was hoping for a program that would free up some of my time during the school day. Our daughter has vision problems that have made it difficult for her to learn to read and she still struggles with reading. Just trying to be transparent and truthful by admitting that.

 I love that a record of lessons is kept, so that you have a record of how your child is doing. It's a nice feature that the lessons are graded so that doesn't have to be done. While I did have to be present to help with some reading for our daughter, it was  a bonus in my book that we didn't have to stay at the same level for each subject. Our daughter could use a grade higher or lower according to her ability of she needed to and switching between grade levels was a breeze.. The lessons and tests aren't excessively long either.  While I wouldn't consider Time4Learning a full curriculum, and it didn't free up my time like I hoped, it can be used as a tool for remedial work and when there is a need for a little extra for practice. The on-screen visuals could be improved a little. Providing links to highlights in the lessons would be nice. Audio would be wonderful! It would be so nice to have an audio feature that defines and translates the meaning of new words or terms within a lesson. One other thing that you may want to consider is the price. At almost twenty dollars per month for one child it can get a little pricey for a years use. There is a bit of a price break if you use it for two children, but no price break for more than two. For two children the cost for nine months would be over $300. Of course the cost would be more if you used it year round.

We used Time4Learning mainly in the range of grades 4-5. Our daughter liked the language arts part of the lesson that was read to her. In order to retain her comprehension though I had to be available to read the rest of the lesson and help her with the test questions. It was much the same with science and history. The stories kept her interest and she was able to answer the questions and understand the content, but for a vision impaired child it would have been nice to have lessons with an audio feature that could be turned off and on. Math was a little easier for her and she was able to figure out much of it on her own. We both liked how the examples were shown and how corrections of worked problems stayed on the screen until she understood them and was ready to go to the next problem. It would have been nice to have more interactive features and games and more practice problems for reinforcement. A child with no learning or visual problems most likely will have no problems using Time4Learning, although they might want more activities.

  I hope this review has been helpful and has answered  questions, especially for parents who know what it's like to have a struggling learner and are considering Time4Learning.

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