ExploreLearning Reflex
By Emily Pohlonski,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Fun games, friendly guides help kids build math fluency.

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What you will—and won't—find in this website.
Community Reviews
Based on 36 parent reviews
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Anxiety-inducing & teaches kids to hate math
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What’s It About?
A character named Crabby walks kids through the set-up. Kids then answer a set of questions to determine their starting fluency. Each game starts with Coach Penny giving them some rules like "Subtracting a number from itself equals 0." Kids practice that rule, and once they demonstrate understanding, they get to play the game to build their speed. As they progress, they earn tokens to redeem for online "prizes." Kids track their growth using the Progress Tree, and parents can view individual reports showing usage and fluency gained.
Is It Any Good?
REFLEX: MATH FACT FLUENCY makes practicing and mastering addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division a lot of fun. The program is adaptive, removing the facts kids already know as they play, which keeps them challenged and wards off boredom. For some math rules, kids may "discover" the math rule simply by playing the game. If not, there's always Coach Penny's tutorial to offer help and support. With Reflex's game-based structure, kids are empowered to own their learning.
The idea behind Reflex is that kids need math fact fluency in order to succeed in more advanced math classes like geometry and algebra. The program doesn't take the math any further than the four operations. However, Reflex provides kids with a foundation for all math learning to come.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about ways we use math facts every day. If you eat 3 of your 5 carrots how many do you have left?
Families can also discuss reasons it's helpful to learn math facts. Why is practice important in math, music, sports, and other areas?
Even though a site is educational, still be aware of how much time kids spend in front of the computer. Check out our advice for setting computer time limits for your kids.
Website Details
- Subjects: Math: addition, division, multiplication, subtraction
- Skills: Thinking & Reasoning: memorization
- Genre: Educational
- Topics: Numbers and Letters
- Pricing structure: Free to try
- Last updated: January 12, 2021
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