TOS Review: Reading Eggs

About a year ago, I heard about an online program called Reading Eggs through one of my yahoo groups.  I wasn’t really sure about its effectiveness, so I decided to give it a 2 week trial.  Was a surprised when my son begged me to play it every single day for the entire 2 week period. 

By the end of that period, he had gotten into some harder material that he had not fully internalized and was struggling on every question.  At that point, I thought that this program just wasn’t for us.  A few weeks later, I saw on offer on the Homeschool Buyers Coop for Reading Eggs.  I looked over it once again, and discovered that when the learning becomes too hard, you simply move the child backwards a few levels.  In fact, it states that the child needs to see the material at least 3 times in order to fully learn the material.  I took a chance, bought a year’s membership, moved him back 7 or 8 levels, and let him try again.

Needless to say, we have not regretted purchasing that membership!  Of ALL of the educational programs that we’ve tried, this is THE ONE that has made the biggest difference in helping Aikman learn to read, segment, and put “connect the dots” to reading!

Reading eggs is an online reading program designed for ages 4-7.  It contains 120 reading lessons split between 12 maps.  Each map contains 10 lessons. The lessons are designed around fun games and short animated and interactive clips that teach sight words and word families.  Each lesson consists of 10-12 activities to reinforce new skills and review words already learned. 

This is what a map looks like.  The funky bird on top of number 71 is the child’s avatar.  This child is on lesson 71. At the bottom, you will see the different maps.  Number 8 is the current map that the child is working on; all previous maps are unlocked while maps 9-12 are locked until the child completes the current map.

To the top left of the screen, you will see a small picture of the avatar’s face, along with how many eggs the child has opened (70), and how many golden eggs the child has accumulated. 

Golden eggs are the reward the child gets for completing an activity.  These eggs can be spent at Reggie’s shop, to customize the child’s house and avatar – from fun furnishings in the house to new clothing and accessories for the avatar.

To the right of the screen, you’ll see all of the other fun options for kids in Reading Eggs – lessons, playroom, arcade, puzzle park, driving tests (spelling), music café, and Aikman’s newest edition to the screen (and greyed out on the screen to the right) – STORYLANDS!

Worried about the kids playing just games on the arcade?  No worries!  The games can be turned on or off in the parent dashboard, which I initially turned off; that is, until I realized that playing them required you to spend some of your hard-earned golden eggs on them!  So, in order to play the games, you must complete some lessons!

 

Here is a screenshot of what one of the instructional games looks like. Sam the Ant is trying to put the words into the correct order to form the sentence “I can play my lid.”  Each time, the child has to put the words in the correct box at the top.  When the sentence is complete, it will read the sentence again, and the drop the words back to the ground.  The child will repeat this 2 or 3 times before completing this exercise.  Once complete, the child will earn 2-4 golden eggs.

 

 

 

 

At the end of the map, there is a quiz.  The quiz determines if the child has learned the material from all of the lessons so far.  In order to move forward, you must pass the quiz.  Aikman is always intimidated by the quiz, but he has definitely learned that in order to pass the quiz, he must take his time and read the quiz carefully.  I typically sit right beside him, reminding him to read it carefully, and to not rush.  This has helped tremendously, especially since he has completed the last few quizzes entirely on his own and without me sitting next to him.  He is now becoming a confident reader!

 

Wanna see Aikman’s current house and avatar?  He’s all about customizing his house and dude. 

A new portion of Reading Eggs has recently opened, called Reading Express, designed for ages 6-8 on improving spelling, vocabulary, writing, and comprehension skills. Since Aikman is still working on the maps in Reading Eggs, we have not ventured over to Reading Express, but am looking forward to when we will be venturing there in the next few months.

Interested in Reading Eggs?  You can get purchase an online subscription here for $9.95/month, or a year subscription for one child for $75.00 (additional children are 50% off the subscription price).  You can also purchase level 1 and level 2 book packs for $65 each or both for $114.95.  By registering, you can receive a 2 week trial of Reading Eggs for free ~ no credit card transaction necessary!

Read what other crew members are saying about Reading Eggs here.

Disclosure:  As a part of the crew, I received a free trial of Reading Eggs; however, since we already have a subscription, I did not need the trial offer.