When I agreed to review Reading Eggs, I thought I knew exactly what to expect because my daughter had used this program several years ago. We enjoyed the program then, but I was very pleased and surprised to see how much more it included now.
For this review I was using Reading Eggs with my four year old son. I was a little concerned about whether or not it would be too difficult for him as he has just recently started expressing interest in letters and numbers. However, when I logged in I found that not only could he work on the reading eggs program that I remembered but they have a new section that is designed for ages 2-4. This gave us a lot of flexibility.
When we tried the first lesson of the regular reading eggs (designed for ages 3-7) my son was able to do it but it was a little more difficult and he honestly did not really enjoy it. I feel that it is a great program and some children may be ready for it at age three but some children will need to be a little older before they are ready for that component. It started with the letter m and was teaching the sound (not the letter name) using a variety of activities related to m. He did the first activity or two but grew tired of it before the lesson was over, but he could easily go back and finish at his own pace.
Though my son was not quite ready for that portion of the program it is still a great program. Reading Eggs starts at the very beginning with letter sounds and continues through fluent reading, their highest levels Reading Eggspress works on reading comprehension and fluency for children ages 7-13. It is a fun and thorough program that works great to help improve a child’s reading ability. Luckily for us, they also now have Reading Eggs Junior.
When we tried the Reading Eggs Junior section (ages 2-4), we knew we had found the right fit. He absolutely loved it and could not get enough. They had books that he could look at and listen as they were read aloud, short videos that worked on letters and other educational concepts, and lots of different games to help him with preschool level skills.
He knows all of his colors but really enjoyed playing the color games where he would match part of an object to the rest of the object in the same color. For example, they might have a purple and a pink car and two cut out circles form the cars (one in each color). He would then have to move the colored circle into the right spot. He enjoyed a game where he had to sort butterflies onto flowers based on their color.
They also had counting games, alphabet games, puzzles and more. The one thing we noticed with the games is that you needed to be used to using a mouse in order to successfully complete the activity. While many children have this skill, it was not something that my four year old had mastered because most of the time he does his activities on the kindle and uses a touch screen. He did get more proficient with the mouse as he worked through various activities.
Each game/activity is done in a map style layout (see the pictures above) and gets progressively harder. They program will let him return to one he has already completed but it will not let him move ahead until he completes that level. This helps keep the children from getting frustrated by the difficulty level. I should also note that in the regular Reading Eggs program it is set up in a similar manner but children can take a placement test to determine where they need to start so that they do not have to go through the lessons from the beginning.
My one real complaint about the program is that it is not compatible with Kindle. While this will not be an issue for many families, we find that logistically it is better if my son’s programs can be done on our kindle. He is better able to navigate the kindle than our desktop and can be more independent. However, this is still a wonderful program and we will work around the kindle issue using it on our desktop. Thankfully, my older children enjoy helping him and can assist him when I am not available.
If this sounds like a program that might be a good fit for your child, I have a wonderful offer for you. Reading Eggs has agreed to give my readers a FREE four week trial of the program. This is a great way for you to try it out and see if it is a good fit for your family.
In addition to the wonderful online program, Reading Eggs has just released new workbooks to accompany the program. While we did not personally use them I am hearing some great things from the reviewers that used the new workbooks and I encourage you to check out the other reviews to learn more about those.
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