My daughter, Gabby, has been struggling with reading since she was in first grade. At the time, I was paying $3000 a year for a private school. There were only twelve kids in the entire first grade. But when my daughter had trouble keeping up with her class, the teacher's answer was to send her out of the room to sit with the kindergarten kids. Then they failed her for the year. I was infuriated buy this treatment, and pulled her out of the school. But the incident severely damaged her self esteem, and even now, four years later, she still worries that she'll be sent away from her friends when she makes a mistake.
She is in public school now and thanks to the pathways program and the "No Student Left Behind" law, she is doing much better. But she still needs a little extra help. When she is doing homework, she often gets frustrated and I can't always help her. Especially with math because it seems like all the rules have changed since I was in school. When I try to explain it my way, it only confuses her more. So when I had the chance to apply for the Kaplan Test Drive hosted by Mom Central, I jumped at the opportunity and was thrilled to be selected.
Kaplan is an online tutoring program for children in kindergarten through 12th grade. In the last few days we have gone through the registrations process which was simple. Both my daughter and I have our own user names and passwords. So she can go online whenever she wants and I can log on to see what she has accomplished. The first step was for her to take an evaluation test to see where her strengths and weaknesses are in both reading and math. She was lead through a variety of multiple choice questions with varying levels of difficulty. A few times when she was stuck she wanted my help but I explained she had to answer on her own and that is was okay if some of the answers were wrong. This seemed to calm her down and she went through the rest of the questions without any problem. We are now waiting for the results and the next step.
Over the next few weeks, we will work to improve her reading and math skills. It seems like Kaplan will make this fun for her and not as much of a chore as everyday homework. We will be spending a few hours each week using the Kaplan program, and when the test drive wraps up, I will be posting an update with my thoughts on how it works and if there is any improvement in my daughter's academics. I hope my reades will join me on this test drive and if things go well you will consider Kaplan if you find that your own child is struggling.
***I wrote this review while participating in a Test Drive Program by Mom Central on behalf of Kaplan and received the products necessary to facilitate my review. In addition, I received a gift certificate to thank me for taking the time to participate***
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