Smartick

What is Smartick 

Smartick asks for around 15 minutes of your kids' time per day. It will reward them with stimulating math practice that helps them further develop their skills in the long term. In the short term, they'll gain access to an arcade of fun games and a virtual village to populate. But only after they've done their learning.

Smart

Your kids won't work through a pre-set route of learning activities. The activities are question-based but use a structure that leads learners towards the correct way to solve them. The app uses artificial intelligence to select and adapt the exercises to match each player's level and progress. It interjects with tutorials where it detects kids need them.

Tick

Your kids' progress earns ticks. These incentivise kids to complete their daily sessions, which leads to awards at the end of each one. Rewards go towards populating a virtual world within the app and providing access to games. The games are pure entertainment but entirely kid safe.

Smartick's teaching and learning materials would not suit a small screen. Smartick has a web app version that is compatible with any desktop or laptop computer. On iOS, you can only download the app to iPads and you should use a tablet-sized Android device with the app.

What we love about Smartick

Smartick has continued to improve since our earlier review of the app awarded it five stars.

Educational experts have guided the development of Smartick. Many apps claim this, but few go into specifics, so we are pleased to see that Smartick's advisors have the confidence to be named within the app and on its website.

The questions are extremely well structured. As the app moves the math into new areas, it sets questions where kids must complete an element of each step using relevant tools such as a number line or blocks. These questions become a mix of tuition, practice, and logic that encourages kids to think more deeply.

Smartick deals with incorrect answers well. Children immediately see if their answers are wrong, and the app shows them the process they should have followed to get it right. In some cases, it steps through the problem step-by-step. In others, it triggers a tutorial to explain the concept.

At the end of the day's session, kids can go back and repeat wrongly answered questions. If they do this, they get an extra tick as an incentive. We like how this gently corrects kids and gives them a reason to try again.

By having the daily session act as a gateway to accessing pure entertainment games, Smartick gives kids a safe gaming environment to play and parents the security of knowing kids can't play them until they've earned it.

What skills does it teach?

Smartick provides learning and practice activities to support the development of math, logic, and coding skills. The app can support students with SEND, such as dyscalculia and ADHD.

What age is it appropriate for?

Smartick's developers give the appropriate age range as 4 to 14. We agree with this, although you should be sure that the app provides enough space for kids at the upper end to progress if they are new to the platform. Look at the app's contents and ensure your kids make good use of the seven-day free trial to be sure.

Is Smartick easy to use?

Smartick is easy for kids to use as it has simple controls. Children can trigger spoken instructions for the maths activities where it is suitable, and the explanations use verbal descriptions by default.

The games also have instructions but resemble popular designs that many kids will easily recognise.

How will students benefit?

Intense revision before tests is not the best approach but schools do not have enough time to refresh kids learning as often as is optimal. Smartick's little-and-often system of just fifteen minutes per day fits in well with kids' concentration spans and reduces the stress of cramming before tests.

Short, fixed-length sessions are more palatable to kids as they know each one is self-contained and will end at a predictable time. If they build their Smartick practice into their daily routine, they'll barely notice it and just enjoy its benefits.

The app gets around the problem of kids getting bored when they have to watch an explanation they don't need by using incorrect answers to trigger them. If kids get the answer to a question correct, it does not need to go into a deep explanation. This flow is one example of how the app adapts to kids as they learn.

How will parents benefit?

SmartTick is most suited for parents who want to give their kids an independent learning experience. The app is just for independent use, as it has interactive guided tutorials, so parents don't need to explain or worry whether their kids have covered the topic at school.

As the app adapts to each child's progress, parents should resist assisting as this would contribute to the app's assessment data. If the app thinks kids have mastered a subject, it will move on, so any answers you provide will cause Smartick to deviate from the optimal structure.

Smartick has a clear and informative Parent Page. From here, parents can check that their kids are using the app enough to warrant the subscription and progressing as expected. It is a very visual layout, so parents not used to viewing data needn't worry about struggling to understand how to make sense of it.

Parents with more than one child using Smartick can administer all their kids' accounts from just one SmartTick parent account. This keeps things simple and will be a welcome feature for homeschooling parents with kids of different ages.

How will teachers benefit?

Smartick would provide an excellent homework platform for an elementary or primary school. Kids gain a short math refresher each evening while teachers will have an informative whole-class assessment and self-marking homework.

Making Smartick available to kids outside of school will make it a valuable tool in the case of school closures. It will also avoid a two-tier support system where kids from wealthier families gain extra app-based support, but others do not. As SmartTick works across platforms, it has a good chance of being compatible with a device each child can access at home.

How much does Smartick app cost?

You'll need to pay for a subscription for each child using Smartick. A seven-day trial is available per child, so you don't have to decide for all children based on the experience of just one.

The rates vary depending on the subscription duration and how many children you subscribe to the platform. As SmartTick is most suitable for long-term learning, we recommend using the annual subscription for the best value if the trial period shows it is suitable for your kids.

Smartick can and has been deployed in schools. You can contact the app developers through their website to discuss how it could work in your school.

Is Smartick app safe to use?

There are no advertisements in SmartTick, and all of the content is designed to be used by kids.

What can Smartick app improve on?

Occasionally a glitch appeared in the question text, which could confuse kids. This type of problem is usually dealt with by reputable apps quickly, and Smartick's history puts it in this camp, so we have not penalised the app at this point. We'd expect this to be fixed in future updates.

On some questions where kids have calculated the answer and entered it without paying attention, they will get it wrong because the app expects them to answer it step by step. For example, completing a column addition without using the columns, kids will enter the answer as usual—left to right. However, the app will enter those numbers from right to left because it expects kids to use the columns.

Kids should remember to read instructions and check their answers, so this is not too problematic and an effective reminder to follow instructions, but it would be good to give kids a chance. For example, if the app detects those numbers are in reverse, it could provide kids with an 'are you sure prompt', the first time it happens.

Overall rating of the app.

Smartick impressed our reviewer in its earlier five-star review, and we're glad to report that it still does. Its ai-driven progression, cleverly designed questions, and incentive structure provide an excellent learning experience that kids will want to play.

Use the free seven-day trial to test the app but remember that the app will need to use much of this time to assess your child's starting point and determine their path to progression. For 15 minutes of their daily time, you can expect your kids to grow in math confidence and ability when they use Smartick.

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You can download Smartick on your iOS or Android devices from the app stores. Download the Smartick app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.