Everything I have written down

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• Paying for effort, not grades The case against paying kids is really a case against paying for grades. Here is what the research separates out, and why this app pays for a completed practice session instead.

The money question

Whether to do this at all, what the evidence says, and what a fair rate looks like once you have decided.

• How much should you pay a kid for schoolwork? Pick a weekly budget per kid first, then divide it down into a per-session rate. Here are the actual numbers, worked all the way through to what a year costs.
• Should you pay your kids to study math? The case against paying kids for schoolwork, made at full strength, then what I think actually survives it. Includes a short list of families who should not do this at all.
• What the research actually says about paying kids for schoolwork A parent's guide to the actual studies. What the school incentive experiments found, what the intrinsic motivation argument does and doesn’t prove, and what nobody has answered yet.

Making practice actually happen

The practical side: what a workable routine looks like, and what to change when a kid digs their heels in.

• A ten minute daily math facts routine Same time every day, one operation, ten minutes, and you stop while it’s still going well. The rule that matters most is watching how long each answer takes, not how many were right.
• When your homeschooler stalls on math drills A stall on math drills is usually the level, the length of the session, or a kid protecting themselves from proof. Here is what to change first, before you switch curriculum again.
• Fact fluency when your kid thinks they’re bad at math A kid who works out 7 x 8 from scratch every time has no working memory left for the problem it was inside. Fact fluency is often the whole gap, and unlike being good at math, it can be fixed.
• Math motivation without switching curriculum again Switching curriculum sets your kid back to the review chapters and buys about three weeks. Here is how to tell a fluency or routine problem from a curriculum problem, and what to change instead.

The other apps

Comparisons written by someone who builds one of the things being compared, which is worth knowing before you read them.

• PiggyBankMath vs XtraMath vs Prodigy Math Facts An honest three-way comparison from the person who built one of them. XtraMath is free and classroom-proven, Prodigy hides the drill inside a game, and PiggyBankMath pays real money. Including when you should pick one of the other two.
• Math fact apps for homeschool, honestly compared Ten math fact programs a homeschooling parent can actually buy in 2026, grouped by the problem you’re solving, each with a real catch. Written by someone who also builds one of them.