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Their wordsIt's not just Prodigy, Oremus observed correctly; the entire premise of edtech companies like Gimkit or Blooket is making games with a minor educational element, with the ultimate result that "schools have embraced education software that has become hard to distinguish from Candy Crush."
Their wordsI think it would be a lot more effective to just give your kid an old-fashioned worksheet and then say "When you're done, you can play video games all evening." Then, they would pick whatever game they like most and probably both do more math and have more fun.
Their wordsAnd this sort of setup can never, ever teach "sustained focus on something that looks hard at first glance," which is one of the most valuable muscles to help children exercise.
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