TOS Crew Review - TenMarks

TenMarks is an online supplemental math program, for grades 3 - High School. At just $10 a month for each student, it is an affordable way to help your child in areas of math that he or she might need some extra work in.
After enrolling, the student is assigned a designated number of "worksheets" each week. Each worksheet consists of 10 problems based on whatever the concept being taught that week is, and the goal is for the child to get 10 out of 10 correct (hence the name of the program!).

If the child needs help, the program offers video lessons, as well as 3 hints per problem. However, the more hints a child uses, the lower his or her score goes - this helps the child to not rely on the program to do all of the thinking for him or her, but instead, get help when it is needed and figure out as much as they can by themselves. If the child requires too much assistance on a worksheet, or scores too low, they program requires a "do-over" before progressing to the next topic, ensuring that the child is getting a good understanding of the topic being taught.

Once the score for the worksheets is given, the child can go back to the problems they missed and try them again, or walk through the video lessons and hints to get more help figuring out the correct answer.

Parents can set up external rewards to be given once a certain learning requirement is met, and the program also offers the incentive of games that can be played. After a certain number of worksheets are completed, a new game will open up, maintaining motivation for the child to continue working.

The program also generates tests after each concept's worksheets are completed. The tests are timed (30 minutes) and have 20 problems each. After a test is completed, it can be retaken if the score demonstrates that the child is still struggling with that concept.

Both Isaac (age 10, 4th grade) and Eara (age 8, 3rd grade) were my "testers" for TenMarks. We had some mixed feelings about the program, so I deecided to condense my thoughts into a pros and cons list:

Pros:

• The video instruction is great for students who need audio/visual help when learning
  
• The kids love the games - they were very good incentive that kept them asking to do Ten Marks!
  
• Excellent customer service - response time to a question I emailed from the website was just a few hours!
• The curriculum is customizable - subjects to be covered can be arranged in preferred order

Cons:

• No minimum work requirement before games are able to be accessed - I had to set limits. While I monitored the children to make sure they meet my required limits, if left to their own devices, a child could easily play games the whole time instead of do their worksheets.
  
• No time limit set on games - again, if not monitored, a child could spend quite a bit of time just playing games.
  
• While tests happen to be assigned after each album is completed, there is no formal notification of when tests are available, so parents could miss them, or children could skip them.
  
• The program does not give immediate correction while doing the worksheets - the student has to finish entire worksheet to see what they got wrong. I prefer immediate correction so that the problem is still fresh and the misunderstanding doesn't continue in other problems.
• Parental notification was limited - while I received an email everytime new worksheets were generated for each child, I was not notified of their progress, scores or available/taken tests. Logging into the website with my login showed me all of these things, but I found the parental part of the website not as easy to navigate as I would have liked.

To be honest, this program met with mixed reviews at our house. The kids enjoyed it, mostly because of the game incentive. The asked eagerly to do TenMarks everyday! We are a family that does not allow a lot of internet/computer game time, so having the chance to play everyday was a easy trade off for a few math problems. However, because of the various reasons I listed above, I found the program lacking in some areas.

As I always mention when I share a review that is not the most positive, please remember that just because something didn't quite fit with our personal homeschooling goals does not mean it won't work for your family! I encourage you to explore the TenMarks website, watch their videos, and try their free trial, to see what you think for yourself! As always, also be sure to check out what other homeschoolers thought by visiting the TOS Homeschool Crew Blog.

Disclaimer: I was given this product specifically for the purpose of reviewing here on my blog as a member of TOS Homeschool Crew. I received no other compensation in regards to this review.