REVIEW: Math Rider Game by Math Rider

Haylee had the unique opportunity to review the Math Rider program by Math Rider.

 

WHAT IS IT?:

Math Rider is a unique software that combines a gaming adventure with practical drilling in the four basic mathematical functions:  addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. 

The result is that your children get to have fun trying to achieve gaming rewards while improving their time and accuracy in their math facts from 0-12.  It is recommended for children in grades 2-6.

Mastery of basic math facts is essential to future success in more advanced math concepts, so it’s important for elementary students to practice regularly and ultimately achieve mastery.  It’s all the better to do it while having fun!

Be sure to verify the system requirements before purchasing.  Math Rider is available as an instant download for $47.

 

OUR EXPERIENCE:

Haylee has repeatedly struggled with instant recall of her multiplication facts.  It has made her progression from there painstakingly slow because of the extra time it takes her to get past the recall of basic math facts.  She’s been known to count on her fingers or write out facts she should know in her head.  When it comes to standardized testing with time limits, this could present a problem because it takes up valuable time that should be used for the more advanced functions.  So when I was given the opportunity to give Math Rider a try, I jumped at the chance!

The program itself was easy to download and set up.  I took the time to read about the program and how it works on the website before we started.  However, I found the game itself to be very intuitive.  You can set up multiple children as separate riders with separate data, but Haylee is my only rider at this time.  After setting up her info, she began her first “quest.”  Each time she “rides,” she gets to choose which function (addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division) and what level (easy, medium, hard) that she wants to play.

The premise of the game is to travel across each part of the kingdom and get to the castle to try to free the princess from captivity.  In order to “travel” throughout the land, the child must give answers to basic math facts. 

The rider’s horse slowly gallops across the countryside as the student encounters hurdles over which their horse must successfully jump.  This is done by correctly answering math facts.  If the student answers incorrectly, the program tells the student the correct equation and continues on, recycling the missed question shortly thereafter to ensure the student has learned the right answer.  As the student begins getting answers correct, the rider’s horse begins to gallop faster so the student must recall the answers more quickly.  However, if they get incorrect answers, the horse begins to slow down again, giving the student more time to answer the next questions.

As the student travels throughout the kingdom and eventually makes it to the castle, completing a quest, they are given a reward of some kind and a little more of the story of the princess.  Haylee has earned several rewards such as a flower, a flag, and a diamond.  With each ride, the student earns points, and they are shown their mastery level for the quest and the location they’ve reached on the map of the kingdom. 

Initially, Haylee got very excited about this game and absolutely loved it.  She wanted to play it for long periods of time.  However, she struggles with mastery of her math facts, which is why I had her play this game in the first place.  She got close to mastery of some (98%), but never reached total mastery (100%).  As a result, she became a little frustrated and lost some of her enthusiasm for playing it.  The thought of having to complete more and more quests and still not achieving the goal of mastery to get the final reward of freeing the princess discouraged her somewhat. 

I know that other children would find that to be an incentive to keep playing, but being a child who is easily discouraged, that is not the case for her.  I wish it were!  Instead, her frustration leads her to make even more mistakes because she becomes distracted by her frustration over the last problem she missed.  However, I do feel the game is a great way to improve accuracy and recall of math facts.  As a result, I plan to have her continue playing regularly to achieve that goal eventually.  But knowing her the way I do, I know I will have to assign it to her as part of her schoolwork in order to get her to do that.  I do love that this game paces itself based on the child’s performance, and I love that it recycles the missed facts until they are done correctly. 

One of the most useful tools in this game is the My Statistics feature that allows me to see exactly which math facts she is missing.  With multiplication, for instance, it shows me the multiplication table and color codes each fact in either green for mastery, yellow for facts that need more practice, or red for the least mastered facts.  This information allowed me to narrow down the 5-6 red facts that she continually misses in multiplication.  That means that these are the facts that she really needs to practice in as many ways as possible.  That is very useful information in terms of my teaching her and helping her to master just those facts.  These performance statistics are available for each function your child has played.

Overall, I think this is a wonderful program that can really help children break through the barriers they may have in truly mastering basic math facts.  With regular gameplay, I can definitely see how this would improve those skills for any child who needs the practice. 

Since you can have up to 8 players and track their progress individually, it makes this program a good value for $47 since you own the product forever and also receive FREE product updates for life!

If you’d like to give it a try, sign up for a FREE 7-day trial to see if the program is a good fit for your family.  If you decide to buy, you also get a 30-day money-back guarantee, so try it out today!

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