TOS Crew Review: FactsFirst

As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew, I was given a 3 month subscription to FactsFirst an online math program by Saxon. The program is designed to help students develop instant recall of basic facts in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

In addition to math fact practice, there is an opportunity for students to solve real world word problems. The program is highly visual and the problems are launched in a setting that is a pretty detailed version of where the problem takes place. You learn math facts in pairs and do word problems and subsequent drill on each pair.

It is a timed drill which R9 did not enjoy- particularly because even if you get the answer correct it may only give you a check instead of a check plus. That was a deal breaker for her.

The cost is $49.99 a year and each household license has four student profiles.

Although, this seems like a great program specifically for learning math facts which is essential for students to progress well in math, I'd be hard pressed to pay almost $50 a year for just the four operations and low level operations at that. There are no options for advanced arithmetic with FactsFirst. It seems to me that my dollar goes farther with a program designed to practice all levels of math concepts not just operations.