Reading eggs

[jlpumkin]

I'm looking into this for my preK.. driven mostly out of a need for educational entertainment so I can give some schooling attention to my 2d grader. Unfortunately we've ridden the starfall horse until he's just about sick of it. It is important to me that he's not just vegging out infront of a screen though.. it's not a priority to me that we really build literacy at 4 either. Oh and I might add that for us screen time is maybe 2x per week not daily though if he loved it enough and was really learning I would consider altering the policy...

So having said that - do you like reading eggs? Find it worth the value? what's the deal with the book packages to go with each level. Do you have them? Do they add significantly to the program?

I appreciate your thoughts!

[BellinghamCrunchie]

Best thing to do is the trial. Then you'll know if its something you want to purchase.

We did the trial and DD loved it for the first few days. Before the trial period was up, she didn't want to do it anymore. It get repetitive fast, apparently.

[philia]

we love reading eggs

We have been doing it for two years. I bought the books but I think they are not that important. I my kids are never sick of it. I will keep renewing for a couple years I think.

[skueppers]

My daughter started using Reading Eggs when she was 4 1/2, and was obsessed with it for about three months. She did learn a lot, though I wouldn't say she learned everything she was "supposed" to learn.

I felt that it was too easy to progress onward without achieving sufficient mastery of the previous material, which eventually led to it becoming too difficult. And yet there were some places where you had to do things over and over again even if you had already mastered them. I wish the software were more clever in adapting to what the child was demonstrating in terms of knowledge.

Also, there are some exercises that require quick responses -- click on the right word before it crosses the screen kinds of things. She doesn't like time pressure, and asked me to do those parts for her (she would tell me what to click, but I actually did the clicking).

She definitely found the eggs at the end of each lesson motivational, and liked that there was a good variety of different kinds of activities in the lessons.

On the whole, I would recommend it, but I don't really have anything to compare it to other than Starfall (she liked Reading Eggs MUCH better than Starfall). We have never tried Headsprout, for example.

[kgianforti]

Reading Eggs is cute. We've only encountered three problems with it:

1. Once or twice, my dd had trouble with the ant's accent.
2. I had to tell her what a "pram" was.
3. It can be VERY repetitious. Like you had to choose the word "the" 20 times in a row. I helped my dd with those since she didn't need that much practice.

I agree that you should try the free trial period to see if you like it. My dd lost interest in it and this coming fall, I'm going to introduce her to Progressive Phonics for something new.

[elizawill]

we love reading eggs! i paid for it once, but my subscription ran out. i never renewed it - but they keep giving me free trials...so it's awesome!!

[dotnetdiva]

At first it seemed repetitive, and I've find myself quickly clicking the word just to get over the repetitive parts. Now my daughter is on map 9, she's progressed so fast and I haven't had to jump in at all. I don't even know it's repetitive, but everytime I look over, it seems it is a new game/activity.

She is learning math out of it too! She's saving up eggs to buy stuff. She loves getting over 100 eggs and then going on a spending spree. She used to go on a spree way more often and couldn't buy stuff.

Now on Level 3, Lesson 83. What's after lesson 90? Our map seems to end there... She could easily hit the end of the map this week. There's 90 new lessons coming out soon, we need them now!

[meetoo]

Angela do you have any idea what the grade level is that it ends at? I'm debating on renewing it for my son, but it i get it for him my DD is going to want it too.

[CariOfOz]

Originally Posted by skueppers

My daughter started using Reading Eggs when she was 4 1/2, and was obsessed with it for about three months. She did learn a lot, though I wouldn't say she learned everything she was "supposed" to learn.

Hehe if you meet that mythological child who always learns everything they are supposed to, I'm impressed

Originally Posted by kgianforti

Reading Eggs is cute. We've only encountered three problems with it:

1. Once or twice, my dd had trouble with the ant's accent.
2. I had to tell her what a "pram" was.
3. It can be VERY repetitious. Like you had to choose the word "the" 20 times in a row. I helped my dd with those since she didn't need that much practice.

Being from Australia, it's kinda nice to have the accent & terminology my kids are familiar with And it's not NEARLY as repititious as Headsprout is in parts. We've been using headsprout off & on for quite a while, and my now 6yo does not like certain parts of it because they take forever and you have to click on all the *insert word* at least 30times to walk a friend across a path.. and you have to do that for 2 or 3 friends!

So while he started off loving Headsprout, by the time we hit lesson 39 he didn't really want to do it. And he really hadn't gotten THAT much from it sadly

We just started using Reading eggs last week, thanks to our distance ed group, and so far he's loving it. And it's seeming less obnoxious for me, Headsprout is LOUD Connor does the reading eggs lessons on his own, whereas with HS he was forever asking me to help him, so they seem a bit more managable for him.

We haven't purchased any book packs as of yet, but for us they are available at local bookstores (not sure if they are int he US or not?) .. I'll probably have a peek at them next time I'm at the mall to see what they are like.

[ebethmom]

My dd loves Reading Eggs. I had to renew the subscription for her a few months ago. She is greatly motivated by the hatching critters. A few of the lessons are hard for her, and she asks me to help.

I would say that she is learning, but not retaining everything from the lesson. She has been working on the site for almost a year, and not yet reading on her own.

I'll definitely renew the subscription again when it's time.

BTW - the subscription cost is listed in Australian currency. The total is less in American dollars.

[greenmamapagan]

I just paid for reading eggs yesterday. Reluctantly because I'm not really big on preschool academics but DD really wanted it. Of course I love that mostly it doesn't have an accent but there is a character in the later maps that has some kind of US drawl (don't ask me what kind, how would I know?). Actually I would have preferred more.starfall (do you know about that?) because it has more variety and starfall seems a little hierarchical but a) it doesn't have a trial and b) DD said she liked reading eggs better anyway.
We have the first book pack. They are the same as the books online at the end of each lesson. Do the free trial, not only will you see what I mean about the books but if you wait a week or two after it ends before signing up you'll get offered a discount

[jlpumkin]

Nice tip about the discount We'll check out the trial.

I've heard of more.starfall but since I can't actually see it I don't want to spend $. Since he's getting bored with starfall, I'm afraid it might end up being more of the same.

Thanks all!

[dotnetdiva]

Meetoo - I do not know the reading level it goes up to. It uses more sight words than I'd like, I'm more of a pure phonics advocate, so it gets confusing. You can see the types of words read for each lesson if you look at their faq page.

To be honest, while I'm in the same room, I very rarely sit next to her as she plays ReadingEggs, so I don't even know the words she's using right now.

The new eggs hatching makes my daughter squeal with delight each time!