This is not a paid Geniebook review.
Readers following my blog probably know that I tutor my primary school kids on my own. Other than English composition, which I have no confidence in guiding on my own, I sit down with my P3 and P4 kiddos to revise their academic works.
We started with assessment books from Popular four years ago, and subsequently, KooBits (for Maths only) since the children’s school subscribed to the platform. We subscribed to Geniebook last June (2019), and with regular use, it is time for me to write a review on this product.
Check out my 2021 Geniebook review on its Science package here.
What is Geniebook?
Geniebook is an online assessment-led learning tool that helps students to identify gaps in their learning.
Using artificial intelligence, the platform recommends challenging questions according to the student’s competency to help them study more efficiently. Geniebook covers English, Maths and Science to help primary and secondary school students enhance their learning.
In our instance, we have subscribed to English and Mathematics. Thus, my review will be based on these two subjects, and according to how my two children (both P3 at the time of use) with varying learning abilities responded to the platform.
Identifying Gaps
One of the fundamental features of Geniebook is its ability to help students and parents identify the student’s area of strengths and weaknesses. It is human nature to avoid refining areas where they feel uncomfortable or incompetent.
This dashboard gives a bird’s-eye view of the child’s ability, and it will direct the parent/child towards the weaker areas.
The graph above shows my P3 girl’s performance in addition and subtraction (orange), and multiplication and division (blue).
I am not satisfied with how Geniebook combines Multiplication and Division into one broad topic, because her school took about two months to cover these two topics.
Thus we couldn’t use Geniebook as a revision platform solely for multiplication. We had to rely on other resources in the meantime to strengthen her foundation.
Nonetheless, I am very pleased that Geniebook has newly made available the P2 contents for our use. This is extremely important for students with a weaker foundations, as proven in our experience.
My P4 boy is weak in Mathematics and needed a lot of help even at the foundation level. I subscribed him to Geniebook last year and he found most of the P3 questions too hard for him to attempt independently.
Below are the contents on English and Science.
The Practice Function
Referring back to the screenshots above, we can either allow Geniebook to select the student’s three weakness areas to draw questions for revision, or we manually tick against the topics we want to focus on.
Before embarking on any new worksheet, Geniebook will bring us back to the last practice to look through the previous mistakes. This is a terrific way to review and learn from our past mistakes.
I love Geniebook for its prompt marking. The platform releases the solution and its accompanying workings to the question immediately upon submission. This is before moving on to the next question.
On completion of the entire worksheet, there is a real person, not A.I, who will check through the work, give comments and release the official score for a particular practice paper. The higher the score, the more bubbles (i.e. rewards) the student will collect.
For problem sums, the easy-to-understand solutions are often accompanied by models, which is a must for Singapore mathematics.
As for English, Geniebook focuses on grammar and comprehension. The latter is a new feature in 2020.
My daughter loves to practice her English Grammar on Geniebook most of the time, save for Synthesis which requires a lot on typing.
Bubble Rewards
This is one feature of Geniebook that all kids will love – redeeming goodies with the bubbles they earn for enduring the arduous questions. Examples of rewards are stationeries with Black Pink labels, cards games such as UNO, and snacks
My thoughts on Geniebook
Geniebook is a wonderful platform filled with intelligent tools that help parents and students to monitor their learning progress.
I like the diverse questions that give students more practice. But after two of my children with varying learning abilities tried out the platform, I think Geniebook is not for everyone.
Most Mathematics Questions Are Beyond Basic
Most of the Maths questions are for the above-average student. If you have a child who needs a lot of help with Mathematics, he will likely get most of the questions wrong.
In my case, I get an angry child who loses confidence and control of himself after a few wrong attempts. Worst of all, the questions are not posed in increasing difficulties. Once frustration builds up in my boy, the entire learning session is ruined.
Of course, every child has a different temperament. My younger girl can tolerate the many mistakes she made and can almost independently complete the practice lessons (typically 15 questions in one session). She learns from the mistakes made from her attempts, and I can see her gradual improvements in her Maths.
Dissecting the topics into finer skill sets.
Geniebook covers the entire topic in each worksheet. There is no option to dissect the topic further.
I have a child who requires a lot of support for learning Foundation Mathematics. In our own experience, KooBits is easier for the child. The platform allows us to select individual skill sets required in each topic to give the struggling student more practice. For instance, transforming improper fractions into mixed numbers. KooBits allow us to generate an entire practice session solely on one sub-topic.
Thus for a child struggling with Maths, I recommend Koobits as a more encouraging platform.
Check out my review on KooBits here.
On the flip side, questions from Koobits are less diverse, and higher-ability students will need to select questions catered to high-ability students to satisfy their thirst for challenges.
Moreover, the KooBits platform solely provides for Maths. If you are thinking of subscribing to a single learning platform with multiple subjects for your high-achieving child, Geniebook is probably a better choice. (On 14 September 2020, KooBits Plus will include Science into their platform).
Typing Skills Required
For English and Science, I find that the student needs to attain a certain level of typing proficiency before they can find Geniebook enjoyable.
My P3 daughter struggled with typing out long sentences while practising synthesis. It distracted her away from her English learning, which I felt defeated the purpose of subscribing to Geniebook.
Thus I directed her focus to other MCQ types of practices or questions that require her to fill in only one or two words.
As such, I am holding back my subscription to Science even though I am actually looking forward to trying out the questions in Geniebook. I prefer to wait for my kids to get better at typing before enrolling on another subject.
My Conclusion
Geniebook is a wonderful learning tool for self-starters who are keen to stretch their limits, and a useful tool for parents and students to keep track of their learning progress. My daughter is happy with Geniebook too because of the progress she has witnessed in her Mathematics.
Interested to try out Geniebook?
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Disclosure: Post-publication, Geniebook provided us with complimentary access to an additional subject for a period of time, with no obligation from my end to include marketing information into this post, nor a future review.
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Thank for sharing your experience of using Geniebook.
Btw, do you also happen to look at Superstar teachers before subscribing to Geniebook ?
Hi Vlad, yes i did though it was for Chinese. It seems that the approach by Superstar is different, with more emphasis on video explanations by teachers and less papers to work on. I think it work better for independent and motivated students. I will probably relook at this when my kids are older.
Hi Melissa,
Thank for your reply. For those topics that are not in Geniebook like composition
and oral read etc. Any ways you can share to complement the platform ?
Hi Vlad, I send my kids to writing lessons. As for oral read, i don’t focus as much. We read aloud books to each other, sometimes I ask the kids to some simple verbal book review, and that’s about it.
We do a couple of past year exam papers nearer the assessment dates too, so that they can get accustomed to exam formats, build their stamina and we can also estimate of their abilities and fill in the gaps.
Love this post of yours. Just wanted to find out the if GenieBook is really good to stretch beyond basics.
I have also subscribed to your future post.
Hi Johnson, thank you for subscribing to my blog. We are still using Geniebook today for English, Maths and and Science. Most questions are mostly beyond basic. More complex questions, multi-level steps for problem solving, advance vocabulary and comprehension. My girl performs above average academically and half of the questions stump her most of the time.