I think as soon as a kid can use a computer mouse or navigate a screen. I think it starts at preschool or kindergarten level? However, some of the games can be confusing for a child in terms of figuring out what is being asked of them.
My kids have been doing it this summer and I think they have learned a lot, however, there have also been annoying things about it. I've had to send messages twice already about "bugs"...with the latest one a problem got "stuck" right in the middle and would not allow the child to finish typing their answer. Logging out and logging back in doesn't help, the same thing happens. Also, lessons can be strangely out of order and not progress in a logical way. For instance it is having DS do equivalent fractions, which has been dragging on FOREVER (he could have mastered this concept after about 3 lessons and it's having him do about 15 of the same thing and he's sick of it). Meanwhile, a new lesson popped up involving multiplying decimals. They never taught him the BASICS about decimals and now he is supposed to multiply them, like 82.7 X .4? So he's learning that 1/2 equals 2/4 st the same time he's being asked to figure out what is 82.7x.4? That doesn't make sense to me. He flunked the pretest for multiplying decimals, but it didn't put him at an easier level to explain decimals. So now I have to sit down with him and explain the basics of multiplying decimals so he can do this level on Dreambox. I don't just want to teach the computations, I want him to truly understand the concept. DD hit a level on there that involved long division with decimals and it is teaching it in a truly bizarre way, where the decimals stay in the same places all the way through the problem and you actually do division, subtraction etc. considering the decimals. I said "This is dumb" and went through and had her do all the problems on paper the normal way, typing the answers myself the way they wanted her to. The "normal" way being that you just multiply the decimals out by moving them to the right, adding zeros at the end, etc.
I wish there was a truly awesome program to teach math, but I'm still looking. As long as the kids are willing to do Dreambox I'll keep paying for it but it has become more frustrating as of late.
