I have just joined both my girls up to IXL maths. I am so far pleased with the program not hugely impressed. I see as a compliment to an already established maths program and this as a back up programme. It is mainly just packed full of math questions which the kids go through until they get to 100 points in which they earn a gold medal and a special prize on their chart. I feel it will complement the math she will be learning at Montessori.
I sit with both the kids and go through the questions with them. My youngest dd who just turned two is comfortably doing the preschool section and my dd who is doing kindergarten math very easily but because she just does not like math and will do this so I have not pushed her any further.
It is only $11.95 a month for them to do it so I feel Im getting enough out of it to warrant a monthly membership.
Yes IXL is a thourough curriculum to PRACTICE concepts taught elsewhere. If your kid knows all the sections and can get the gold you can be confident they have passes that year level in math. At some point ( perhaps not in the early years) some teaching will need to be done in rod to use the program. You sure get a lot of questions done in a short time period. The kids don’t find it overwhelming like a page of sums.
Discounts are often available on the homeschool websites. I paid $45 for a yearly membership from memory. I was paying monthly prior to that.
Overall IXL is helpful if you child needs more practice on time management skills during tests. It is pretty stressful for my daughter sometimes and I can see her getting frustrated with the timer and also unable to get 100% after getting a few questions wrong. Other websites I tried also stresses her out. The one website so far that she is willing to continuously use is Beestar. She enjoys the worksheets and seeing her name on the honor roll. I am also able to track her progress to make sure she is staying on schedule. Most importantly she gained back the confidence she needed to learn new concepts at school.