Math Skills Builder Lite vs Making Cents

(Note: This free version limits program to only the first unit and no assessment. Available through in app purchase.) Teaches students how to apply their early numeracy skills to solve problems. Using math stories with real-world scenarios, students learn concrete strategies (using multiple modes of learning) for knowing when to add or subtract to solve the math story. Research found the program extremely effective in teaching students to be successful problem solvers.

Making Cents is a simplified money/purchase calculator with life skills applications. It was designed for students with special needs in mind, but it is also good for kids learning about money and sales tax. Input how much money you have, add together the prices of what you're purchasing, apply tax, and view the result! Lets you see if you have enough money for a purchase when tax is added to what you want to buy. It has large visual buttons: Start Over, Erase (separately erases the Have or Buy), Have, Buy, Tax, +, -, and =. Simply Enter * How much money you have * Cost of what you want to buy * Press Tax * Get your results — Can you afford the purchase or not? Visual, audio, kinesthetic, and tactile features * Visual — Vibrant colors, green thumbs-up & red thumbs-down * Audio — When tapped, talking buttons tells you how much money you have, how much you want to buy, green thumbs-up says “you have enough money” and red thumbs-down says “you don’t have enough money.” * Kinesthetic & Tactile — Touch screen activated, touch buttons or words. Settings * Easily set or change the tax rate for your city or county * Turn on/off voice (defaults to on) * Remembers last settings * Can reset tax to default 8%