GetAhead is EvaluNet’s educational software for grades 1 to 12 based on the South African school curriculum. This software is useful as a revision and assessment tool.

The GetAhead programme covers the following areas of learning:

• Themes
• Numeracy
• Literacy
• Life Orientation

There are quite a few categories or subjects covered by each area of learning. Each category in the learning areas has three activities which can be undertaken the ‘short’ (five questions) or the ‘long’ way (10 questions).  The activities are:

Learn, where a child is taught the various aspects of that subject with questions that can be answered either by multiple choice, drag and drop or typing the actual word in.  The response the child gives to the question will determine the type of feedback given.  When a correct answer is given, an extra ‘look here’ block pops up with extra information regarding the question.  When an incorrect answer is given, the pop up box then gives a ‘clue’ to what the correct answer is – the child can then either select ‘show me’ or ‘try again’. Through this learning exercise the child will be awarded with smiley stars for correct answers or crosses for incorrect answers.

Test, where a child’s knowledge is tested on what they know about a particular subject that has been covered in the learning part of the program.  The result of the test is only given at the end of the test.

Play, where a competition is held between two players who have to answer a question in order to go up the winning ladder.

You can also select either English or Afrikaans.

We recommend you spend some time getting to know the product (before introducing it to your child).  There are a number of ‘Product Tips’ as well as ‘Parent Tools’ that are most useful such as the fact that ‘You can adjust your child’s targets according to his / her expectations and ability’.

Your child’s progress can be monitored in the ‘My Results’ which gives you a basic graph with a score from 1-5 of where your child is situated with his /her abilities in the various learning areas. You can use the tests and assessments for more than one child.

Under the ‘Parent Centre’ you can get a more detailed breakdown of your child’s abilities either broken down by learning program (this will give you their percentage scores in the various learning areas of the program) or list recent exercises (this gives you very specific percentage results of the various exercises attempted by your child).

When you introduce GetAhead to your child for the first time, we recommend you spend some time guiding your child through the various aspects of the programme, as most tend to rush through the screens for the end result (our generation of instant gratification), rather than taking time to read the ‘Look Here’ pop up screen which shares some interesting information.

If you purchase the product at the beginning of the year, the learning material covered will obviously be new to your child and you will have to assist them. Your children will enjoy the time you spend together familiarising yourselves with the programme. What is nice is that there is no ‘time-out’ for answers to be given which allows the child to work at their own pace.

There is no sound built into the programme so a Grade 1 child who has not yet learned to read will require the parent to read through the questions. However, the repetition of words in the questions and answers eventually allows a child to spell out and recognise most of the words. GetAhead is also more effective if used on a regular basis to reinforce the learning material through repetition.

The navigation back to the main menu could be a little clearer for first time users. If you need to go to the main menu, click on the x on the top right hand corner. There were a few questions or instructions that were a little unclear. However, after attempting these questions a second time we were able to comprehend what they were asking. In life we are given unclear instructions or interpret instructions incorrectly and figuring out the correct way to proceed is a good exercise for problem solving skills. In the top left hand corner there is a question mark. Click on this to have the question or what is required explained to you.

I would definitely recommend as EvaluNet – GetAhead do, especially for the higher Grades, that your child keeps note paper handy to work out some of the math problems and also to take notes of some interesting facts and even new words they learn. For the lower grades have some counters or an abacus on hand. They will be useful for your child to work out the basic addition and subtraction questions.

So, if you are tired of noisy ‘educational’ computer games / programmes, tired of having to explain non-South African language terms and looking for a rewarding feeling of spending time with your child while teaching them something – then click here to find out more about the GetAhead products.