A parent from Maui sent in this message about her son Kai:

Aloha! It’s been about 18 months since we last spoke. At that stage, I’d just taken Kai out of school because he had “fallen through the cracks” and the teachers were totally unequipped to deal with his visual learning problem. He was reading at less than a 5 year level, according to the testing from the specific learning school I took him to for assessment. They were ready to put him in with the severely learning disabled kids. Frankly, I didn’t believe them. What parent does?
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Wired Magazine has an interesting article on a proposed public “Game School” for grades 6 to 12 in New York City. The premise is to engage and educate students of the video game generation through innovative curriculum. The key question is be whether they can deliver growth in reading and math for the large percentage of NY students lacking basic skills. This has been a challenge for theme schools: it is often easier to “engage” students than to “educate” them in the basics!

From our perspective, combining engaging youth-friendly media such as video games, pop music, and animation with a rigorous research-based curriculum is the solution. When students are in their “comfort zone”, their focus, attention, and motivation is high. Carefully designed online courses can turn this opportunity into real learning with measurable growth.

Wired Magazine Article

Gamelab Institute Of Play

From parent Roy K:

I spent so much time last school year helping my 8th grade son with Pre-Algebra that I used to joke to my friends that I had a part time job as a math tutor. The tension and stress in our home this created was so heavy that I thought it was going to drive me to drink. Needless to say, I finally found some on-line help for my son and we were able to make it through the school-year (but just barely). We continued with that other site for several months until we found Math Upgrade this summer. My son has spent hour after hour on your program trying to get himself caught up this summer. I would be lying if I said that he has done it all with a smile on his face because he hasn’t. Some of it has been grueling. But he did say to my wife the other day, “Thanks Mom for finding Math Upgrade. I wish I didn’t have to do any Math at all this summer but since I do, this program makes it kind of fun. I actually kind of like it.” Needless to say, I have been able to quit my job as a Math tutor!

Thanks,
Roy K

Teachers from Georgia schools can now view an alignment of the Reading Upgrade, Comprehension Upgrade, and Math Upgrade courses to the Georgia Performance Standards. The correlation shows the 160 lessons in the three courses listed with each matching standard.

Our courses contain material from a number of different grade levels to provide review and intervention for struggling students. Thus you will notice a wide range of grade level standards for each course. Click “View Context” next to each standard to see it within the larger context of the standards.

View Georgia Alignment

We also have alignments for other states including California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Texas: see our index for a complete list.

Alignment Index