What Kids Say

This is Too Easy!‍

If your child says that they find the app to be "too easy" it could mean that one or more things are happening:

1) It is actually too easy for them

Congratulations! This means your child already has an understanding of the topics the app is working on with them. As soon as our technology confirms their understanding, it will automatically advance to the next topic which likely won’t be as easy. We present many slight variations when teaching a topic to confirm your student's understanding.

If you hear "it's too easy" multiple times, or you believe that the questions truly are too easy for your child and you want to move on to the next subject, you can place a subject back into Test Out mode. In Test Out mode, we ask the hardest questions from a subject to test whether your child truly understands it. If they get those questions correct, they complete the test much faster as they don’t need to answer the easier question variations.

To place a subject into Test Out mode, login to your Elephant Learning account at https://v2.elephantlearning.com. On your child's dashboard, scroll down to the Active Curriculum section and, under the Statistics column, click on the “Test Out” button in the lower left corner.

2) They think it's easy because they got a few questions right

Sometimes when a child correctly answers a few questions in a row they think they “know it.” Getting some answers right doesn’t automatically mean your child understands the concept. It could mean that they just guessed the answer correctly. Our app is designed to detect this, so we recommend you just continue to encourage your child to work within the app, so our technology can confirm their actual understanding. Once that happens, they will see the question types change.

3) It's actually hard for them

As parents ourselves, we know that kids are sometimes smarter than mom and dad. If they say something is too easy, often parents will allow them to stop doing it or skip ahead. The reality may be that the concepts are hard, but the child knows if they say it’s easy, you’ll tell them they don’t need to use the app anymore. We encourage you to let the technology powering the app (which was designed by combining expert learning in mathematics and education) keep working with your child.

As a reminder, when in doubt, you can always reach out to our Student Support Team at support@elephantlearning.com, and we can help. Our team is ready, willing, and able to give you the guidance you need to feel confident about your child’s learning.

This is Too Hard!

If your child says that they find the app to be “too hard” it could mean that one or more things are happening:

1) It is actually too hard for them

Sometimes a child can answer questions in a way that accelerates them past a concept before they fully understand it. This rarely happens and is usually the result of lucky guessing or getting a parent to help with a question when the parent doesn’t realize they are answering the question for the child. If this happens, you may want to move them back to an earlier concept so they can learn the basics again before proceeding to more advanced questions. In our system, this is referred to as “changing the student’s assignment," and you can find out more about it in How Do I Change My Student's Assignment?

2) A pause would help

If a single topic is proving difficult, it might be useful to pause it. You can pause a subject until later, which preserves your student’s progress on that subject, but will not present any more questions from that subject until you resume. To pause a subject, go to the Dashboard and scroll down to the Active Curriculum section. Select the specific subject and click on the “Pause” button in the lower left corner.

3) They aren’t interested right now, and want an excuse to stop using the app

As parents ourselves, we know that kids are sometimes smarter than mom and dad. If they say something is too hard, often parents will allow them to stop doing it. The reality may be that the concepts are hard, and the child needs to just stick at it. It may also be the case that they are saying it’s too hard, because they aren’t interested in using the app right now (e.g., they are hungry, tired, distracted, etc.).

We recommend that you check in to see what’s actually going on with the child to determine whether it’s the questions being asked (see how to handle that in #1 above), or whether the child just doesn’t want to use the app at this moment. The reason we recommend sessions of ten minutes each, three times per week is because we know that (a) almost all children can maintain focus for that amount of time, and (b) it spreads usage out to acknowledge a child’s attention level. That’s why daily playtime is limited to twenty minutes by default. Elephant Learning is designed to optimize your child’s learning of mathematics without forcing them to do extended time periods of learning activities.

As a reminder, when in doubt, you can always reach out to our Student Support Team at support@elephantlearning.com, and we can help. Our team is ready, willing, and able to give you the guidance you need to feel confident about your child’s learning.

This is Repetitive

If your child says that they find the app to be “repetitive” it could mean that one or more things are happening:

1) It actually is too easy for them

Congratulations! This means your child already has an understanding of the topics the app is working on with them. As soon as our technology confirms their understanding it will automatically advance to the next topic which likely won’t be as easy. Encourage the child to keep using the app for at least 1-2 more weeks, and see what they are saying at that point.

If at that point the child is still complaining that it’s too repetitive, you can place a subject back into Test Out mode. This will allow your student to complete the subject faster. In Test Out mode, we ask the hardest questions from a subject to test whether your child truly understands it. If they get those questions correct, they complete the test much faster as they don’t need to answer the easier question variations.

2) They think the questions are the same, but really they aren't

If you ask an adult, “What is 5+1?” and then “What is 6+1?” they may think these are the same question. In actuality, these are very different questions, but adults have memorized the answers over time, and they now seem very easy. It is important to know that for students, each number is a unique piece of vocabulary that requires multiple rounds of “play” to develop a clear understanding. To you, the relationship between 5 and 6 is very simple (5 comes before 6, 6 is one more than 5, etc.), but to a student, this understanding is developed over time. This is the same way it was for you, but it’s probably been so long that you don’t remember specifically learning it. To understand why your observations and feelings about the app may not match up with your student’s, we encourage you to check out our article When I Was Your Age.

3) They aren’t interested right now, and want an excuse to stop using the app

I Don't Like the Voices! / It Doesn't Say My Name Right!

Our system offers a wide variety of voices, and all of them are enabled by default. It's not uncommon that one of these voices might seem annoying or difficult to understand. In such cases, you can disable those voices using your student's settings. To disable voices or change the pronunciation, please follow the steps in How Can I Change the Voices Used in the App?