Time4Learning Review: Why I Don’t Like It.

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We are starting our fourth year of homeschooling. Over the years, we’ve gone through a lot of different curriculum. Each one has taught me what I like and don’t like. What works for our family and what doesn’t.

For kindergarten, I bought a couple of downloadable PDF’s that were not a complete set. I wasn’t happy with them at all.

So for first grade, I knew I wanted to get an all inclusive curriculum for my son. But curriculum is so expensive. I had no idea I would have to pay hundreds of dollars to homeschool my child.

I searched and searched for a good deal. That’s when I found Time4learning. It was only $20 a month at the time and seemed like such a great program.

Every review I read was positive, and it was a really popular recommendation in homeschool forums. I wish I had known that a lot of these people were promoting it because of the referral program, not necessarily because they truly loved it.

But I’ll talk about that in a bit.

So after weeks of agonizing over the right curriculum, I signed up for Time4Learning.

At first, I really liked it. There were great tutorials to get started and the parent’s portal was well organized.

The program also seemed like it had a lot to offer. There were lots of videos for the kids to watch, math games, and some worksheets to print.

But after about a month using the program, my son became very frustrated.

He hated the lessons and hated doing school. Every day was a struggle, and I worried that he hated school as such a young age.

I wish I had given it up right then and chosen a different curriculum. However, I didn’t know what else to use, and I thought we had to stick to the same program. So we kept struggling through it for a few more months.

Why I didn’t like Time4Learning

1. Too much computer time for young children.

Every single lesson is on the computer. There are multiple videos to watch each day for each subject.

After watching the video lessons, the student then has questions to answer online and quizzes to pass. There is no break or variety.

As a first grader, that is incredibly boring. This is also a time when children are developing their fine and gross motor skills, but there is little chance for this when using Time4Learning as there are hardly any worksheets or offline games.

2. Low quality videos.

The videos were outdated and low quality. I often went to YouTube to find a better quality video that explained a math or reading concept for free.

Some videos were cartoons. Other videos were puppets. They were slow paced, and didn’t keep my son’s attention.

In my opinion, they did not cover the learning material well and skipped all over the place. I wish the lessons had built upon previous lessons, but it did not.

3. Lack of basic skills.

I wish with all my heart that I could go back and change the curriculum we used with my son for first grade. This is the year when they learn the basic skills for reading, writing, and math facts.

Time4learning held him back. He struggled so much with this online program. There were no additional resources for parents to help teach children to read.

There was no handwriting curriculum available. It also didn’t teach students how to write sentences.

The only spelling practice provided was a giant list of “first grade spelling words”. These words were in alphabetical order, so they were not broken up into word families or presented in a sequence that built upon skills.

The parent has to figure all that out on their own. I ended up not using the spelling list from Time4Learning and instead used a free spelling resource online. My son did so much better with the free version that I found.

I believe my son was behind in his basic reading, writing, and spelling abilities because I chose to use Time4learning. Over the past year and a half, we have spent a lot of time doing extra work in these areas since he didn’t get a good foundation.

What we did instead of Time4Learning

Time4learning may be a good resource from some students who don’t need repetition, but as a former educator I don’t think that is the case with most children.

We ended up canceling our subscription to Time4learning after 5 months of using it. It was the middle of the school year, but I just couldn’t keep doing what we were doing.

My son hated school time. I was incredibly frustrated. It was an overall terrible experience. Quitting Time4Learning was one of the best homeschooling decisions I made.

Instead, we used a Scholastic first grade book, read a lot, and did our own writing time. Once we stopped using Time4Learning, he actually started enjoying school. I enjoyed it too.

I wish I had switched sooner. The lesson I learned is that it’s okay to stop doing something if it’s not working.

I also learned that having a paper copy curriculum was the best way to teach my kids. We now use Masterbooks for math, science and history. These are my affiliate links.

For grammar, spelling, reading we use Spectrum. My kids handwriting curriculum is from Zaner Blosen.

I hope this review has saved you from investing in Time4Learning. It’s not worth the frustration.

I know this post comes off quite harsh, but I just can’t recommend this way of learning at all. I know there are others who would completely disagree with me. I encourage you to read their reviews too.

But please remember that the ones who are recommending it are most likely receiving credit or payments for getting others to sign up for the program as well.

If you have any questions about the program or would even like to share a differing opinion, feel free to share in the comments.

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