Addicting math games with little to offer for deeper understanding.
Submitted 9 years ago
Community Review for Sumdog
My Take
I dont have a high over all opinion of this product. It loses its educational value after the 2nd grade for average math learners. The best way to describe its inadequacies is that it does not offer any opportunity for deeper understanding of the content. Students enjoyed it, but they enjoyed the game playing and avatar alterations more than the math content.
How I Use It
Because I am an instructional coach I saw it used as stations in a math class. It is an ok platform to use for math facts, but again it lacks in the developmental applied math skills that are students are lacking. For free, its not bad, but there are some better websites out there, unfortunately they come with a subscription.
More community reviews for Sumdog
Matthew D.
February 10, 2019
Good to engage students in practicing simple math facts and concepts
Overall, I like the product and was willing to pay the price for a subscription. The advantage to Sumdog and other similar programs is that you always have a few kids who go home and do it because they want to do it. I am especially glad when it reaches those who generally struggle doing homework. You have to consider whether you think it is worth the money (about $200 per class), but if you are looking for ways to motivate students to improve fluency on basic math concepts, this may be a good option.
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Marsha W.
P.S. 055 Benjamin Franklin School
Bronx, NY
March 7, 2018
Class Competition While Improving Math Skills
SumDog is an excellent tool for review and reinforcement. Being able to compete against classmates was a strong enough pull to keep my 5th grade students engaged. Each student has an avatar which they can customize as they acquire coins. One thing that would improve SumDog is if teachers had the ability to create sub-groupings within the class so that student could compete against students in the same grouping.
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1 person found this helpful.
Graham E.
Teacher
Mc Millan Magnet Middle School
Omaha, NE
January 26, 2016
A wonderful tool for reviewing math both in school and at home though it does not introduce new concepts.
Sumdog is not teaching new content, but it is an excellent review tool. While you may have a student that begins to understand new concepts while playing Sumdog, it is not a teaching tool for those that want to introduce new content. Because Sumdog will continue to introduce new concepts until a student hits a wall, students will occasionally be forced into answering questions they have never seen before (ex. Multiplication or division when they haven't learned it in the classroom yet.) Sumdog seems to be easy to contact through email, but I don't have a lot of experience with this.
TLDR: A lot of fun for students and a very welcome math review tool for students to use at home and at school.
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