Community reviews for IXL

IXL is a well organized website that provides practice exercises for math skills. IXL is easy to search and navigate. Educators, students, and parents can easily access material based on grade level, state standards, or the Common Core standards. The well organized nature of the website makes it quick and easy to get started. I found the site more appropriate for my younger than Khan Academy, but provides similar practice activities. IXL seemed to offer grade level content whereas Khan sometimes includes problems that are too advanced for my students (ie, negative numbers, exponents, etc). A major downside to IXL is the lack of math instruction or hints to support student learning. It is a practice platform, not a learning one. Khan shines in this area but IXL falls short. IXL is fairly text heavy and doesn't have an interesting interface or motivational badges, etc. This could get monotonous quickly for students. To use all the reporting features, you'll need to pay.

This website has a variety of concepts for common core standards in grade levels Pre-K-grade 10. It is easy to navigate the home screen, and easy for non-math teachers to help students who are struggling with math. It is free to try, and without logging a student can do 20 problems a day for free. It is primarily for drilling and practice, but that is often what kids need. Students answer questions and if they get them wrong there is a detailed explanation on how to reach the correct answer, so on the next problem they can try that technique.

IXL is an excellent tool for those students who need to either practice, review or challenge themselves. I have used this program with my daughter's school for three years. It has been a rewarding activity for her to complete in addition to her daily math homework. It is never a problem for her to access the site (with her own name and password) and for her to receive immediate feedback on her learning. The website has been immensely helpful for review of concepts that perhaps were not emphasized in her daily math routines. I am also appreciative that it has a "rewards" section which keeps her focused.