Learning mental math, which is the ability to do math in your head without pen, paper, or finger counting, requires lots of practice. Unfortunately, many children are just not getting the practice and repetition they need. In 2017, over 50 percent of 4th graders weren't proficient at 4th grade Common Core mathematics standards. Slower students, like those with disabilities, wind up falling further and further behind.
Fortunately, new educational apps for iPad, iPhone, and Android are taking math learning to another level. Kids can use these programs at college or at home to learn, practice, and master mental math. This allows children to devote more brain power to learning new concepts, rather than counting.
Your child deserves the world's best tools to help them master addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
1. Math Ace
Launched in the summer of 2018, Math Ace is one of the newest and best mental math practice apps for gifted and autistic children alike. There are programs for each grade. Each app is a whole Common Core command workbook disguised as a game.
Math Ace breaks the Common Core mathematics standards for each year into minute-long mathematics challenges. They're like digital worksheets, that adapt to student mistakes to improve learning.
What puts Math Ace the top of our list is that it excels in both fun and learning. For each minute of math practice, students are given a token to blast off into orbit at a fun jetpack mini-game which often lasts under one minute. Students earn medals doing math practice to level up their jetpack and fly into space.
Within 10 minutes of app usage, students answer between 100 to 200 math facts, greater than the other programs we've tested. And the dynamic nature of the challenges is extremely effective.
The app design is amazing, and easy to use. There's one large list of challenges that makes it simple to keep track of your child's progress.
We recommend setting a target for you children to earn 10 medals every day. They will be on a fast track to mental math mastery. Start a free trial with Math Ace for a week, which gives you full access to all Ace Programs such as Math Ace and Spelling Ace. After that, complete access is $19.99 / 3 weeks.
2. Splash Math
Second on our list is Splash Math, a wonderful all about mathematics learning program, with a wide range of questions and entertaining, colorful design. Within each category, there are numerous levels.
While slightly less powerful than Math Ace for mental math mastery, Splash Math is a excellent tool for your child to use daily. Unlike Math Ace, which repeats questions that students get wrong until they achieve mastery, Splash Math appears to choose questions randomly. The Splash Math challenges are also untimed.
Start a free trial for a week. After that, complete access costs $19.99 / 3 weeks.
3.
It has a fun visual design, and offers thousands of challenges. Each challenge comprises a set of pages using a range of adorable problems on them. Students answer the issues by circling with their finger.
In 10 minutes of use, students may answer between 50 to 100 math issues, which is fantastic . The worksheets do not seem to be as lively as in Math Ace. Mistakes don't cause problems to be repeated.
While Kids Academy is a great overall e-learning platform, it is less effective at developing mental math mastery quickly than the apps over.
4. Prodigy
Prodigy is a fun role playing game (RPG) with mathematics problems folded in to the battles. While not as useful at helping students achieve mental math mastery quickly as Math Ace, Prodigy deserves attention as it makes mathematics practice super fun. And it's free.
In 10 minutes of play, students will answer about 30 mathematics questions. The actual amount varies depending on how many battles students get into.
Prodigy is free and widely suggested by teachers. It becomes third place on our list because of how fun the RPG game is, although it's less effective at mental math mastery. Kids who might be immune to learning can get sucked into the game.
The developers make money by selling in-app upgrades and real world toys.
5. SmartKids
SmartKids offers an impressive selection of mini-games to educate a wide assortment of topics. Kids go crazy for this program. While SmartKids is a great general e-learning platform, the pace of the mini-games means that pupils only answer a few math problems per minute of program usage. In 10 minutes of play, students may only answer between 20 and 30 math problems.
If your child wants to catch up, we recommend one of the other programs above. Each mini-game requires the player to learn the rules of this game, and leaves less space for studying mental math. Tracking a child's proficiency can also be harder.
We hope your child enjoys using the programs above to develop great mental math abilities.
