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Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

Holy moly - the "maths age 3 to 5" app is expensive. £15.99 for "all topics". That's $25.

So these apps reportedly get a child the equivalent of 18 months of mathematical development in 6 weeks of short, fun sessions? In that case, it does seem the £15.99 price is off by at least an order of magnitude, but I suspect we disagree on the direction.

For comparison, there are UK private primary schools that will cost you about GBP 12k/year that deliver far less measurable benefit (if any) than that, that are still wildly successful at attracting students.

The benefit of those is generally teaching kids how to pass the entrance exams for good secondary schools.

If it works. The BBC don't link to this study. It's not linked on Dr Pitchford's website - http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/njp/research.ht...

There's a PDF called "unlocking talent" on the onebillion website, but that crashes iOS Chrome so I haven't been able to read it. It's not peer reviewed. It's not blinded.

https://onebillion.org.uk/downloads/unlocking-talent-final-r...

I can find plenty of published research for stuff which is pure horseshit - brain gym - or for stuff approachig horseshit in the way it's applied - Omega 3; learning styles; a lot of "cures" for dyslexia.

So far I have a press release from a company saying "trust us, our app works" with nothing to corroborate it.

What do you get for £16?

Sorting and matching

Counting to 3

Lines and patterns

Counting 4 to 6

Where is it?

Counting 7 to 10

Patterns and shapes

Counting 1 to 10

Comparing

Add and take away.

That's an under whelming list. It's the bare knuckle minimum you'd tolerate if you had a 1:90 teacher:pupil ratio.

Tldr: give them the money because educating Malawian children is good, but for your own children buy a book and do it yourself.

Or cheap, depending on what it is actually worth.

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