Brainetics: Memory…Math…Amazing! ~Review~

Brainetics is a high-energy program that challenges you – at your own pace – with fun mental tasks that help you concentrate, focus, and build your mental processing at the same time.

Who is Brainetics for?

Brainetics is for anybody aged 9 to 90 that have a grasp of the multiplication tables.

KIDS! Brainetics is for kids 9 and up of all abilities, from those with special needs to the highly gifted. The system teaches kids the priceless skills of focus, following directions, problem solving, organizational skills and memory improvement.

ADULTS! Brainetics the best kept secret for giving adults the edge at work!! Over 35% of people using Brainetics are ADULTS!…And for many adults, this is the answer to a lifetime of math anxiety.

SENIORS! Experts agree – by practicing mental exercises and challenging your brain with games and puzzles you can stave off mental aging, staying sharp and increasing mental clarity. You’ll be thinking younger and faster before you know it.

Brainetics is a long (in a good way 🙂 and involved program which makes it great for home and classroom use, but at the same time made it difficult to write a concise review.  If you bear with the length of the review you’ll get a bit of an idea of how Brainetics works, as well as what a great tool it can be for people of all ages over 9!

The first DVD has 3 fun exercises to get your brain thinking and recognizing patterns.  I’m not a math oriented person and I found the first challenge quite challenging.  So challenging that I needed help from the teacher…oh, wait, I’m the teacher in my house.  Well, let’s just say that I got stuck.  I’ll have to see if subsequent viewings of DVD 1 will help.  The second exercise, “Cool Calendar Challenge” was challenging, but fun.  The premise of that exercise is that with simple calculations you can quickly figure out what day of the year any given date fell/will fall on.  Now, I don’t think I could ever figure out the day of the week as quickly as Mike Byster does, but the calculations are simple enough that it wouldn’t take me more than a minute.

At first I was thrown off by the fact that the video segments on the DVD are structured like a competition.  On the video there are 4 teams of kids the kids come up two at a time and compete against each other to be the first to answer the questions correctly.  I don’t think pitting kids against each other to see who’s brain works best under pressure is a great way of inspiring self-confidence when it comes to math, but in the 3rd DVD Mike explains that he does it this way to emphasize how fast these calculations can be done.

From the 3rd DVD on (there are 5 DVDs total) Mike teaches you how to do complex problems (like 3 digit multiplication, squaring 3 digit numbers, etc) quickly, using simple math, in your head.  In order to do DVD 3 and on you need to have the ability to do basic multiplication, as well as two digit addition and subtraction.  I was impressed at how easy it was for me to square 521!

What I find more complex than actually solving the mathematical problems with Mike’s shortcuts is figuring out which shortcut to use when.  For example, the shortcut methods you use to square numbers 475-525 is different than the shortcut you’d use to square numbers 101-125, and then what do you use for all the numbers in between.  What percentage of a kid’s math problems will fall in those specific ranges?

Despite the resulting gap in my understanding I still feel that Brainetics is an invaluable resource for parents of children who are just beginning to learn more advanced math as well as for everyone else beyond that age.  The complex multiplication tricks are shortcuts that any adult would find helpful on a given day.  I can see Brainetics being a great teaching tool at home and in the classroom.

Buy It:

The Brainetics pack includes 2 playbooks, math flash cards, and a deck of cards to help you practice what you learn in the videos so that you can solidify your understanding of the tips, tricks, and calculations. The complete set is sold at Brainetics.com for $149.99.

You can find Brainetics on facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/Brainetics

And on twitter at: http://twitter.com/brainetics

Check out the Brainetics FAQ page for more info!