Through the TOS Homeschool Crew I was given a free trial from Reading Eggs in order to give an honest review. Since my son is on the tail end of the age range this is designed for, he used Reading Eggspress much more than the base program, Reading Eggs. This review reflects that.
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Reading Eggspress is a unique learning environment for 7-13 year olds, designed to boost reading, comprehension skills, spelling and grammar. The spinning world gets students involved and motivated to learn. Children love the games, songs, golden eggs and other rewards which, along with feeling proud of their reading, really motivate children to keep exploring and learning. from the website
The website includes a variety of games and lessons that engage the reader. It is set up in a fashion where it all feels like a game yet learning is the goal. From the website on “Why it Works”:
- This powerful educational program is based on the most up-to-date research on how children learn to read.
- The lessons use animation, activities and reward games to keep children motivated.
- The program is completely interactive to keep children on task.
- Children want to come back because they are having fun as they learn.
- When children start the program, they can complete a placement quiz to ensure they are starting at the correct reading level.
Reading Eggs offers a free trial for parents or teachers. If you would like to purchase a subscription, they offer these options:
- Monthly- $9.95
- 6 Months- $49.95
- 12 Months- $75.00
They also offer book packs to go along with the online subscriptions {check the website to see what each includes}:
- Level 1- Matches the first 40 lessons of the program- $65.00
- Level 2- Matches the second 40 lessons of the program- $65.00
- Level 3- Includes all 80 lessons books- $114.95
The set up is fairly pain-free {super easy}. There is an assessment for the Reading Eggs portion {which is for beginning or struggling young readers} but not for Reading Eggspress that I could find. I had Fox take the assessment anyway. It placed him as a 5.5 year old. Below is a shot of one of the assessment screens.
From that point on, Fox was allowed to enjoy himself on the site. And he did. Immensely. So much so that he could spend hours at a time playing on Reading Eggs and Reading Eggspress. The shot below shows the Floating Island where the student chooses a place to learn, play or buy stuff with earned golden eggs.
When first starting out, the student can choose who they want to ‘be’ {their avatar}.
From the parent screen I can look to see what Fox has been up to while on Reading Eggs. The shot below shows his achievements.
And actually above that is the students reading age and comprehension age {you can see this on the parent’s homepage, at the bottom of the page, as well}. Here is Fox’s according to Reading Eggs.
Okay so if the student wants to go to the library to read a book, they will go here:
I took a screenshot of the books available for my son’s age range in a particular genre in the library. Comedy is what I chose to capture here.
After the student reads their choice of book, they take a quiz. They have to pass the quiz in order to get gold eggs and a trading card.
A student can also go to the Stadium to ‘compete’ {with another person or with the computer- Fox only ever competed against the computer} in different games dealing with reading, spelling, and such.
All of the things that are done on Reading Eggs and Reading Eggspress can earn the student gold eggs. These gold eggs are like currency. With them the student can go to the mall and purchase things for their apartment, clothes, and other items. One thing {no, the main thing} that Fox has used his gold eggs for is trading cards.
I hope I have given you a general overview of the program. Now here are the Pros and Cons as I see them for our family.
Pros:
- Colorful- as you can see from the screenshots, there is a lot of color in is this website. It is ‘appealing’ and draws the student in and makes them feel that they are having fun {like playing a game}.
- Fun- a lot of the activities are fun for the student, while still attempting to get them to retain important information.
- Engaging- the students want to use this program.
- My son loves it!
Cons:
- Inaccurate- on a few occasions although the lessons that were presented had accurate information, the answers that the student had to choose from were incorrect {so if Fox chose the right answer- it said it was wrong}. Also the assessment is extremely flawed. Reading Eggs is intended for beginning readers or struggling young readers. Reading Eggspress is for older, more experienced readers {although they may be struggling}. When Fox took the assessment for Reading Eggs it placed him as a 5.5 year old reading level. Even before he missed answers on the lessons, he was placed at an 11 year old reading level with a 9.5 year comprehension level. He is 12 and reads at a high school level {standardized testing has shown this consistently}. So something somewhere is not right with the assessment.
- Twaddle- the books that the students have to read from are not original works; they are edited and abridged {from what I read}. I just felt that they were not high quality works.
- Strange characters- the avatar that my son chose {since he is a boy} looks like a little man- not a boy. Also there are very odd characters throughout the program that sometimes we were just so distracted by. I think there was a centaur lady with a half-shirt-vest-type-thing. The trading cards, although my son’s absolute favorite part of the whole program, also have questionable characters on them- some parents may find them inappropriate.
Bottom line:
When we first started this, I felt it was going to be too young for my son. It never hurts to have fun when learning, though. It was good at first because he really wanted to get on it and do the lessons, play the games, hit his targets, etc. But as time went on, it’s just a game and his reading level and comprehension has gone down. Granted, I understand that this is partially {perhaps even mostly} due to the fact that my son is not applying himself as completely as he could. However, I feel this is just too much of a distraction to be continued with as anything other than a for-fun thing after his other work is done. He still loves this program and wants to play it everyday- but the results have not be as desired.
As for the cost: that is something that each family/teacher would need to decide for themselves but I think this could be considered reasonable for what is offered.
I might recommend this to others if they have a struggling child- one who is uninterested in reading and/or one that needs to have the visual stimulation. I would not recommend this to families that have strong readers.
Make sure to read other reviews by other TOS Crew members to get a better feel how it might work for your family/class.
***Disclaimer: I received a free trial to the above program as part of the TOS Homeschool Crew. All opinions stated are my own. I only recommend products that I feel will be of benefit to others. No compensation was given. See Disclosure/Policies.***
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