When summer break started, I wanted to help my children stay on track to achieve their learning goals. To reinforce last year’s concepts, I signed up for an IXL subscription. This gave each child her own account for learning Math, Language Arts, Social Studies, Science and Spanish, while I could check their progress with my parent account. Check out a quick video we made at the beginning of summer to show how IXL works.

How To Use IXL To Achieve Learning Goals

My family has used IXL for the past two years through my daughter’s school. Now, we are using a home account, which gives us more access to features, such as the parent account, the Spanish curriculum, and the data for Social Studies and Science. Not only did I appreciate having access to the recommendations IXL gave my children, but my children also enjoyed learning the topics that interest them. Today on Theresa’s Reviews, I am sharing how to use IXL to achieve learning goals.

Review Concepts Your Child Already Learned

One reason to use IXL is to review concepts your child already learned. With the wide range of difficulty that IXL has, you can find a good beginning place for most children within their current grade level. Since my daughter recently finished second grade, she started the summer with second grade IXL to review concepts her teacher taught her in the last year.

Children can independently complete topics by logging on, clicking their grade level, and selecting a subject to study.

From the list of topics, choose a specific skill. Each topic has several different skills you can study. For example, 2nd grade Multiplication starts with counting equal groups, goes through strategies for understanding multiplication, and gets more difficult with memorizing the multiplication tables up to 10.

Since each school curriculum is different, you might find that your child has not learned all the topics listed under your grade level. Review with concepts that are in your child’s comfort zone. Instead of jumping to multiplication, start with skip counting. Find questions that look similar to the assignments your child has completed in school to reinforce those concepts.

Learn New Concepts

If you are using IXL over the summer, trying new concepts your child will learn in the upcoming year can be beneficial. For children who are reading above grade level, this is a good time to work on more difficult language arts skills.

From your account, you can preview different topics. Choose one that is slightly more difficult than what your child has already learned, but that they can do independently after they get some support on the first few questions. If you choose a skill that is too challenging, it can be frustrating, so make sure that the challenging material is reasonable for your child to complete.

One of the challenging topics we focused on was finding the main idea. Although my daughter practiced this topic extensively over the summer, it is one of the only skills she attempted that she was unable to get to a 100 SmartScore. Since I could tell she needs more practice in this area, now I can help her more with this topic in the new school year.

Check Progress Under The Parent Account

To get the most from your IXL membership, make sure to log into the parent account. You can get detailed information for each child to see how many questions they answered, how much time they spent working, and how many skills they made progress in when they practiced. If you are giving your children access to a device for IXL progress, you can check in occasionally to see that they are staying focused.

Another section to look at is to see how many questions your child missed in each section. This can help you give advice on which skills to focus on next.

Spend Time Working Together

Even though apps have the benefit of supporting independent learning, you can get more from the experience by working with your children. Ask questions about why your child picked a certain answer. Getting your children to explain their thinking helps them have a more firm understanding of the concept.

Delve deeper into a subject by having your child complete their IXL time next to you. If your child gets frustrated, you can lead them to choosing the right topic. You can also see if your child isn’t challenging herself and help select a more difficult skill.

Make connections between the topics your child is studying and the world around you. Whether you can make a connection to a book you read together, a historical site you visited, or a science museum, this can help your children remember what they are learning.

Celebrate The Awards You Earn

With IXL, children can feel proud of their progress. Show that you appreciate their success by printing out the most special certificates they earn. Children can earn certificates for starting to study a new subject, achieving excellence in a certain amount of skills, answering a certain amount of questions, and more.

In addition to the certificates, children can earn awards, such as keychains or badges, to celebrate their success. Not only do my children enjoy collecting these, but it also works as an incentive to do more work. If your child sees that she only needs to practice two more skills or answer 10 more questions to earn the new award, they are more likely to keep going.

We had a good experience using IXL this summer. Encouraging learning at home can be difficult when it is not required by school, but I was happy that my children stayed focused and continued to learn new skills. I look forward to having this as a resource during the school year as well. Many school systems do not assign homework anymore, which has its pros and cons. Having IXL to complete at home will help reinforce the subjects my children learn in school and it will show me how much they understand the material.

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