XtraMath sessions are short — about 10 minutes or less — and are ideally intended to be done once a day. A typical session consists of a few quiz and practice activities, each lasting about two minutes.
💡 When a student first starts XtraMath, they’ll meet a teacher character, Mr. C, who explains the program via short videos. In a group setting you may want to provide headphones.
First up is a Placement Quiz. This is actually several quizzes, broken up into short segments over the first few sessions. This goes quicker for some students than others... this is to be expected!
Students answer math facts, and are encouraged to be accurate and quick. An animated timer indicates the progression for each question. However, you can hide the timer if it adds too much pressure for a particular student.
Placement ends once XtraMath determines the initial fluency score. This score is a reference point for teachers and parents so they can track how the student progresses.
Once placement is done, each day a student signs into XtraMath they start off with a two minute Progress Quiz to check what progress they’ve made. Students do not take more than one progress quiz a day. The fluency score and matrix are constantly updated to reflect this progress.
💡 Students can keep track of their progress with the fact matrix shown before every activity. This shows them which facts they are already fluent in, and which they are still working on.
After the progress quiz, the student moves on to practice activities called Race the Teacher. The student is challenged to answer the problems more quickly than the teacher character, and to see how many correct answers they can get in a row. Practices are where students develop their fact fluency. XtraMath chooses an individualized set of 10 facts for the student to work on. Spaced repetition is used to solidify knowledge of these particular facts.
The practice activities do not affect a student's fluency score (as that would just test short-term memory). Instead, their next progress quiz will assess which facts have been retained.
Students earn trophies for reaching certain milestones in XtraMath. Any new trophies earned are shown to the student at the end of an activity. Each trophy indicates something slightly different. Your online student report shows all the trophies a student has earned. Just click a trophy to see when they achieved it and what it means. There's also a printable version of each trophy that the student can color in.
When a student finishes an operation by achieving fluency in all its facts, they earn a certificate. Certificates are designed to be printed and posted on a bulletin board or fridge, to celebrate the student’s accomplishment. You can access these certificates from your class report or student report. See How can I print certificates for my students? for details. When a student has finished an operation and earned their certificate, they will automatically move on to the next operation in their assigned program, if one is available.
