Prodigy Math – WISE Score & Parent Review | Screenwise

Prodigy Math

Name: Screenwise
Author: Screenwise

app2018

62%

WISE Score

4.8

App Store

Pokémon meets Common Core, but with a persistent car salesman asking for your credit card every five minutes.

Prodigy Math

app

Everyone, 2018

62%

WISE Score

4.8

App Store

Pokémon meets Common Core, but with a persistent car salesman asking for your credit card every five minutes.

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Where to Find

App Store

Google Play

Screenwise Verdict

Prodigy is the ultimate digital 'sugar-coated broccoli.' It works because it’s a legitimate game first and a math curriculum second. Kids love the monster-battling mechanics, and teachers love that it keeps a class quiet and 'productive.'

However, the monetization is where it gets greasy. The game is designed to make kids want the 'Premium' membership so badly it hurts, and they’ll see their friends with cool capes and pets that they can't get for free. If you can handle the constant 'Can I have the membership?' requests, it’s a solid way to keep math skills from rusting. Just don't expect it to turn a math-hater into a mathematician; it mostly just turns them into a Prodigy fan.

Age Fit

Best for 1st through 6th graders. By 7th grade, the 'cute' aesthetic loses its charm and the math-to-gameplay ratio starts to feel inefficient.

WISE Breakdown

Wholesome

The fantasy setting is clean and the 'battles' are non-violent spell-casting. However, the game creates a clear social divide between 'haves' and 'have-nots' based on membership status, which can be emotionally taxing for kids in a classroom setting.

Imaginative

It's essentially a Pokémon clone with math problems. While not groundbreakingly original, the pet collection, world exploration, and character customization do a great job of hooking kids into a fantasy narrative.

Safe

Capped due to aggressive monetization. The app uses heavy-handed psychological tactics to push premium memberships on children, often making non-paying players feel 'weak' or excluded from cool gear and pets.

Enriching

It successfully gets kids to solve math problems they might otherwise avoid. The adaptive difficulty is smart, but the ratio of actual math to 'walking around and decorating' can be pretty thin.

Parent Info

✓

Why It Might Be Great

It turns math practice into a game kids actually ask to play on the weekend.
The adaptive engine ensures the questions aren't so hard they cause a meltdown.
Huge variety of math skills (1,400+) that actually align with what they're doing in school.
Great for 'stealth learning' for kids who have developed a phobia of traditional worksheets.

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What to Watch For

The 'Premium' upselling is relentless and can make kids feel like they're 'losing' if you don't pay.
Kids can spend 20 minutes customizing an avatar and only 2 minutes actually doing math.
The 'social' aspect in schools can lead to status-chasing over who has the rarest membership-only pets.

Conversation Starters

"Do you feel like the math questions are too easy or just right to get past the monsters?"
"Why do you think the game makes some pets only available if you pay real money?"
"If you could design a math spell for the game, what would the problem look like?"
"Is it more fun to win the battle or to collect the pets?"

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