Monarch is an interactive, Internet-based homeschool curriculum for grades 3-12 that's compatible with most web browsers on a Windows® or Macintosh® operating system accessible 24/7 from anywhere in the world. Monarch contains Bible-based online lessons in the five core subjects of Bible, history and geography, language arts, math, and science, as well as a wide variety of electives. Electives include world languages, history, literature, math, science, geography, health, civics, and preparation for GED testing. Monarch subscriptions are good for 18 months beginning on the date of purchase.
Website: Alpha Omega Monarch
(39 Reviews)
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Contributor Reviews
Reviews are solely the opinions of the contributor.
Cons: The program is useless. See my review for details.
Grades Used: 9th
This is the worst online homeschooling program we have ever used. It is very discouraging to a student when he constantly receives the following message while trying to complete lessons:
Our Apologies - On this page, an error has been detected.
Contact Us - If this error continues to occur, you can Leave Feedback or Contact Monarch Technical Support
More Information - Not authenticated. Problem with https://monarch.aop.com/api/get_maintenance/,
When we clicked on the "Leave Feedback" nothing happens. When we click on "Contach Monarch Technical Support" we get a sad face in a square box that below says "www.aophomeschooling.com refused to connect.
We have struggled with this program through the year that we've used it. Unfortunately we can't afford to just simply purchase something else, so as disheartening as it has been to our student, we've had to constantly encourage him to just keep trying, even though the messages above recur many, many times while he is using the program.
Cons: Too many projects, Minimalist lessons, voices, grading, several test questions per test, no books
Grades Used: 4th, 6th
We've used Monarch for the past 9 months and will not be using it again. It wasn't right for our family. My 12 yr old and my 10 yr old used it and struggled throughout the entire year. The voices used are computer voices and ridiculous. They were a big distraction to us. Also, the lessons were not explained thoroughly. It gives only the bare minimum amount of information. If you have questions, too bad. There's no books to explain. The few good things are shadowed by these major problems. There were also grading methods used we disagree with plus questions on tests that we also thought ridiculous. We'll be going with video lessons from another provider next year.
Cons: Busy work, bugged material/questions
Grades Used: 3, 9, 5
I am doing the family plan, 3 kids for $70. I have a 9th, 5th, and 3rd grader. Coming from public school this year, my younger two have taken to the online program ok. My 9th grader is overrun with essays.
Basically, the technology is difficult for my 3rd grader, especially the math. It has numbers you have to drag over other numbers to demonstrate your work, and it is difficult to use.
My 9th grader is taking Algebra 2, and she is doing ok for the most part, but needs outside help often and it doesn't help that the material is sometimes wrong.
I have submitted numerous material errors for correction (sometimes weekly) and they have responded saying they fixed it. I am not sure why my family has to be the beta testers, and this material should be combed through before we get to it.
I wish they had a teacher's guide, to show how we are to correct certain assignments. I also wish the material had links in the questions (for the parents) to see where the student was supposed to read some of the information. I see often there are questions that weren't covered by the material.
Cons: Confusing and scattered material not detailed or explained good enough--or OVER explained. Questions worded horribly and confusing. Correct answers counted wrong.
Grades Used: 9
We used Monarch for the first year of homeschooling, which was 9th grade.
Some of our issues:
1. Questions worded wrong or confusingly.
2. Tons of her answers counted wrong that were right. Contacting CS became monotonous. There were even times, I had the correct answers via online link to a viable, valid website but they would still tell me her answers were wrong.
3. If we needed to reschedule, the system was supposed to evenly disburse the work over the time left in the school year, it did NOT. Some days she would have one page to read, the next, she may have TWELVE for ONE subject. As a single working mother/homemaker, I did not have time to go in and spend the hours it would've taken to fix this myself.
4. The work assigned was so far ahead of our public school (which is certainly the goal for homeschooling), it was like she skipped a grade or two and missed so much information. She had a 3.8 GPA in public school, and with Monarch, she was virutally lost.
AOP may be great for children who begin homeschooling in elementary school, but not as a late entry. There were many things we spoke to a 12th grade friend about, and he had never even had the things she was doing. I concluded the curriculum was poorly written by a novice, and also, pretty much the same stuff for all high school grades, no matter what grade you were in. Not grade specific or appropriate.
5. Complicated, scattered material, many videos were just, almost useless as far as actual explaining the information. Some things in science and algebra had NO detailed explanations or videos, in which she became just lost. We dropped out of algebra, and chose another program because it was so bad.
The platform was easy to use, and a very 'ideal' program in theory. But less than desirable because of the actual content. I wrote the main office many times, as well as emailed, but there were never changes.
She signed up for French 1 as her required foreign language, and my friend from Paris, whose mother taught French as a second language there her entire career (and is retired now), said it was the worst and most poorly written, un-functional material she had ever seen! She said there was no way a child could successfully learn French the way Monarch was trying to teach it.
I truly wish they would've made changes, we would still be with them this year because we loved the online application.
More questions? be.engme at yahoo.
Cons: None for us
Grades Used: 3rd and now 4th
I feel the need to bring to attention that the previous young reviewer is misleading everyone about the the experiments. There are plenty of experiments to do and the 2 she has spoken about we in fact did earlier this year or was it late last year?
Pro's for us: Miss9 loves that she can carry on with the work and I don't have to hover around helping her all the time. Her favourite part is the Tiny Tutors, Farmer Frank and all the multimedia inserts.
Being online and being able to print off the worksheets makes this a win-win for us.
I love that she gets to learn independently with a program that she enjoys to use.
Using a flash-enable web browser makes Monarch portable on and iOS and Android device.
Cons: A lot of the questions are not writen correctly, the questions are not fully understandable, and they ether give you to much to read and you forget or not a enof to read (as in you dont understand)
Grades Used: 4
my mom let me wright this post since I'm the one using it, Monarch is a lot of fun paper or computer I have learned some things but I learned lot of this a grade ago on a different homeschooling thing, I think it was called "Alpha Omega Lifepack" so it does not teach up to date. The thing about Monarch that sets it different is it is affordable. BTW (by the way) there are not a lot of science escarpments, in the other one (Lifepack) I got to see how a small rope in saltwater make saltwater crystals (I thought it was cool) you also have to document it, it shows you how to grow a store bought potato and much more, I do not get that from Monarch.
I am an little girl living in MO so ya this is sad I HAVE to wright this
Cons: unsure
Grades Used: 10
We have used SOS in the past and am looking forward to using Monarch. I just wanted to point out that there is a trial period. This may not have been offered in the past. Also, it isn't able to be passed down, but Monarch offers a family rate. It's $69 for a family of 3. That's still very affordable. Discounts on shipping should not be offered as they have to host the server for this curriculum.
Cons: poorly written, outdated, difficult to use occasionally
Grades Used: 12th
This curriculum, if it was everything one would expect, would be excellent. However the actual product is quite different. To keep this brief I will only point out a few things.
Several of the subjects are quite outdated in the examples they use, and even certain content (ie: explaining what a search engine on the internet is to twelfth graders)
The precalculus and physics lessons are very poorly written. It is nearly impossible for the average student to understand certain concepts by just reading the lesson alone. Outside sources are a necessity.
Cons: Would be nice if you could go full screen with videos and animations within the lessons
Grades Used: 4th
Before we signed up for the monthly subscription, I researched and read that there have been many improvements to the Monarch program. I feel compelled to leave a review here that is more current because the most recent is over a year old and I don't feel it reflects all of the improvements that have been made to this program.
First off, I really had ALOT of questions before changing over to Monarch from Abeka. Their customer service people were awesome! Their webinars were informative and helpful with great moderators. They even provide a free-of-charge diagnostic test to help properly place your child in their appropriate grade level.
We are still quite new but I am having no problems navigating, reviewing her work, grading the work (although most grading is done for you.). Even though this is designed for your child to work independently, I sat with my daughter to do her first few lessons just so that I could be intimately familiar with our new curriculum. For the first time, I hear my daughter say that her school is fun! Music to a homeschooler's ears.
With a monthly subscription, you have the option of going up or down a grade according to your child's ability. So for example, you can use 3rd grade Bible, but use 4th grade math and/or 5th grade language arts - totally customizable. Really love this feature.
Lastly, there is very little to lose To at least try Monarch. The monthly subscription is VERY affordable, and there is no commitment. If you don't like it after a month, you haven't lost hundreds of dollars on a curriculum that you and your child hate. In short, we LOVE it!,
Cons: A little slow
We love it! Having used SOS the past 2 year, we are loving the change to Monarch. I did think we should have received an extra discount as other curricula requires shipment, and there is no shipping for Monarch. Virtually all the others offer the additional shipping discount, in case you wonder where I am coming from.
Also, torn with what to do when my youngest is ready to use her older sibling's SOS that we currently have. Part of SOS was the fact that we could reuse the curriculum, and so far, Monarch does not give an option like that.
Cons: slow server, poorly coded, terrible customer service
Grades Used: 4,5,6,7,8
Monarch is a poorly-executed improvement on a very poor program - switched on schoolhouse. We had high hopes for the program, but the company's server is very slow and often unavailable altogether. We have a very fast internet connection and new computers at home, but Monarch ends up wasting hours of our time both in doing the schoolwork and in correcting.
I was very hopeful. I am very disappointed. AOP needs to hire some actual coders (this appears to have been written by a high schooler) and invest in their infrastructure.
Cons: seems to have issues with all browsers I have tried
Grades Used: 4th
This is the first and last year we will use Monarch. In all fairness, this is my first year homeschooling so I don't have much to compare it to but I don't like it enough to use it again. As the other reviewer said, I also don't like that it doesn't have lesson reviews. To read every single lesson again before a quiz is not a realistic way to review in my opinion. I have my daughter write her vocab and take notes on each lesson but a review would still be nice. I used to print out the quizzes and have her write the answers as a review for a while but that took a lot of time and was not a positive experience for either of us. There are review games before each test but they are not easy to find if you are new to the program. It took a while for us to realize they were there. We also have a problem with every browser we've tried with Monarch, Internet Explorer doesn't let you drag and drop, text to speech doesn't work in Firefox, and sometimes the mark completed button doesn't work in Google Crome. It's really aggravating that we have to download every browser available and try it resulting in different issues. I also don't like how I have to navigate through to help my child with the lesson question she is having trouble with. If I click the lesson in the calendar I can only see and do limited thing, if I go to assigned work and click the lesson I have to choose whether or not I want to see the answer key OR student work, not both so it's hard to see what she's doing and the correct answer all at once. It does let me see the correct answer if she's typed the wrong one but if she hasn't marked an answer yet it doesn't let me see the correct answer to help her. I have also found that we can't do some of the projects and experiments because we don't have the supplies or the weather is bad and we can't go outside and get pond water in the ice and snow. Another thing I don't like is the quizzes are too many, too fast and way too long. There are also too many reports. I unassign many of the quizzes and reports. I do like that I can unassign and reassign lessons but it doesn't work exactly the way I'd like it to so sometimes it makes it confusing to her as to what lessons she is to do that day so she always has to ask what to do next. I also like that I have the ability to customize some things on it like grading scale and how many times she has to answer a question before it's marked wrong, ect. Now that we're in the middle of the year, it's starting to assign way more lessons in a day. A normal day is 5 lessons, now we're getting as many as 7 (2 maths or LA in a day or both) so I have to move things around and unassign some (usually the enormous amount of quizzes) to make the day more manageable because we have typing class, cursive writing, and a health class workbook as well. Once I change things around the way I want it, it usually takes my 4th grader about 3 hours to complete her work. She definitely likes it much better than the private and public schools she's been to so I can't say it has been a negative experience, I just think there are curriculums out there better geared toward us so we will be working with a homeschool mentor to help us choose a different route for us next year. Hope this review helps. Oh and one more thing, for as much as Monarch costs, I don't like that you have to buy a new one for each child each year. You cannot pass it down like most other curriculums. My kindergartner is doing Lifepacs and we don't love those either FYI. Happy homeschooling!
Cons: May be slow with slower internet connection
Grades Used: 3rd-12th
I would like to respond to some of the issues raised below, but I scarcely know where to begin. First, I do not believe that the above reviewer has learned how to use Monarch adequately to provide a review. Many of the statements made above are simply not true. I am a longtime SOS user who often represents AOP at conventions, and have extensively used Monarch over the last 14 months. I would encourage anyone who questions the current usability of Monarch to register for a Monarch webinar (http://www.aophomeschooling.com/monarch/webinars.php)to view Monarch firsthand. A look at the Monarch program should refute the validity of the issues mentioned above. I have addressed many of them myself below.
1. Monarch was released for use 14 months ago. While it is true that there is no testing/trial period, it is NOT in the early stages of development, nor is it in a beta test phase. The Monarch webinar is a GREAT way to investigate the program BEFORE purchasing.
2. Students are able to review ALL completed lessons prior to review time. There is not a "review lesson", however, every lesson previously completed is available for review. This is also true of Switched-on Schoolhouse which the reviewer has heard wonderful things about.
3. I generally agree with the the reviewer on this point. The reviewer is correct that there are no spelling review options. Monarch and SOS both need to improve this area of the Language Arts program. There is little time for review between the spelling lessons and spelling quizzes. SOS allows parents to rearrange the order of lessons to add more time for review. This is not currently possible in Monarch. This is a minor issue for most users.
4. The Daily Work Report lists the title of every lesson. There is nothing confusing about these. I am completely unclear on what the review has an issue with here. Her explanation does not make sense when you view the actual content of the Daily Work Reports.
5. There is no highlighting option in Monarch, however, that does not mean that the lessons must be printed out for study and review. Students can (and should) take notes as they study their lessons. This is an important study skill that should be encouraged for all students regardless of what type of curriculum is used. Taking notes helps students retain information.
6. The Text-to-speech box is not tiny. It shows the text that is being read out loud so that the student can hear and see the text at the same time.
I hope this helps to assure prospective users that Monarch can be a wonderful curriculum choice for children! Please sign up for a Monarch webinar to view Monarch for yourself!!
Cons: Very difficult to use, not user friendly
Grades Used: 3-12
Personally, I have had SEVERAL issues with the monarch program:
1. There's NO trial/testing period, even though it's still in the VERY EARLY stages of development. There's
2. There is absolutely no review of the lessons before it's quiz time.(The scheduled quizzes could be a week or two AFTER the corresponding lessons, without a review lesson).
3. On the language arts lessons, spelling lists (and vocab lists) are sooo long, and again, there are no review lessons or practice links to go to to "cement" the lessons in your mind before your quiz assignment is automatically scheduled for your child. To review, you need to go back to an ancient looking lesson plan tree, FIND the corresponding lessons, then review each one separately to prepare for your test. Oh, and FINDING the lessons is NOT user-friendly, either. It truly is a pain, especially for a child!
4. When I print out the "Daily Work Reports" the supposed lesson description listed often does not correspond to the exact lesson name your child completed in his/her actual lesson window. Extremely confusing during bookeeping & grading!
5. There is no "Highlight text" option, so you need to print out the lesson if you want to take notes, or mark it in any way to help your child learn.
6. There is also a "read text" function, but when you use it, a TINY little box with the lesson text pops up, blocking your view of the nice big lesson window. This is a huge distraction, especially for very visual learners, or those who are easily distracted.
7. All in all, the product seems incomplete, not user-friendly, rushed, and copied out of a textbook, with some videos & links sprinkled in with the lesson. If I had to do it all over, I WOULD NOT, and I urge anyone considering this program to "lighten their load" to look elsewhere.
My burning question is this: If I need to PRINT out every lesson, SUPPLEMENT the online lessons, waste my time with an extremely confusing setup, AND re-teach & supervise my child who's also having a hard time learning & retaining the material, WHY pay through the nose for a program that's supposed to work online & make your job easier? I would have been better off with workbooks- which by the way, would probably be my last choice...?
I had originally bought the 4th grade Monarch program (minus the math) because I had read WONDERFUL things about Switched on Schoolhouse (SOS). I had read different posts all over the web that claimed that it was the online version of SOS... DEFINITELY NOT! Even the customer service rep I spoke to (after the non-refundable purchase), commented that many people who were used to SOS were very unhappy with Monarch. The thing is, I had never even used SOS! I STILL can't stand Monarch, but more importantly, MY 9YR. old SON can't stand it, doesn't learn well on it, and asks to go back to our "old way" of homeschooling- With books, videos, discussions and regular writing practice. Back to the drawing board for us, and what a painfully expensive lesson this was!
You can find other Monarch customer reviews at: http://www.momlovesbooks.com/?p=207 and: http://www.homeschool-curriculum-savings.com/aop-monarch-homeschool-curriculum-review.html#comments and:http://www.aophomeschooling.com/blog/aop-net-alert/monarch-is-coming-soon/#leave_comment. (I had also posted my comment on some of those links).
Bottom line: INFORM yourself thoroughly before you purchase any non-refundable curriculum to protect your family's curriculum budget! God Bless.