Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Review: Reading Eggs




As a part of the Home & School Group, I got the opportunity to review the Reading Eggs program.  I signed Andy up since he's my only non reader now.  He had a lot of fun playing the games and visiting the "Playroom".   He also liked spending the golden eggs he earned during the course of the lessons.  It was helpful that he knows his numbers for the dot to dot parts of the lessons.



There were times he got frustrated with hearing the sounds in the words.  He is in speech class and I think that has something to do with it.  He says "Boon" for "Spoon" and so clicked on the picture of the spoon instead of the ball for "B".



Reading Eggs is geared for children ages 3-13.  It is based in Australia and I did find that a few things were called differently than we called them (ie tap instead of faucet), but it wasn't a big problem.  

I was excited about Reading Eggs being available for iPad and Android.  Unfortunately, our operating system wasn't the right one (It needs to be 4.1 and we had 4.0).

Reading Eggs costs $49.95 for a 6 month subscription and $69 for a whole year.   I think that getting a 1 year subscription would be a good investment.  I also liked that you can sign up for a 14 day trial without having to give them your credit card information.  They also offer book packages where you can get the books for each tier of the program (40 of them) along with 200 stickers, 4 mini posters, 4 activity books and Flashcards.  The book packs are $65 each with a subscription or $110 for both.  


The Reading Eggs Read-To-Cure Challenge

From February 3 to March 7 your child can join thousands of children across the United States taking
part in the Reading Eggs Read-To-Cure Challenge – an effort to inspire children to read while raising
funds for The National Children’s Cancer Society (NCCS). Our goal is to raise $25,000, plus Reading
Eggs will match every donation made up to this amount!

About the cause
The Reading Eggs Read-To-Cure Challenge aims to help the NCCS realize their mission to improve the
quality of life for children with cancer. All money raised will help provide financial, emotional and
educational support for children and families battling childhood cancer. Learn more about the NCCS
at www.thenccs.org.

How does the Read-To-Cure Challenge work?


Children sign up for a FREE 5 week trial of Reading Eggs, the popular online reading program for 3–
13 year olds. From February 3 to March 7 they are encouraged to complete as many books and
Reading Eggs lessons as they can. Friends and family can sponsor their reading efforts, with all
money raised going to the NCCS.

What’s more, there are great prizes up for grabs for the top 3 children who read the most books and
the top 3 children who raise the most funds!

The Reading Eggs Read-To-Cure Challenge is a FREE event. To start fundraising, children will be set
up with their own fundraising web page and you can email family and friends to sponsor their
reading efforts with donations!


Signing Up

Parents sign up to their free trial of Reading Eggs at the web address by clicking on the link above. Once logged in to the dashboard screen they need to simply add their child to their account.
Once their child is set up in the dashboard they need to click on the button on the left hand side bar
prompting them to join the challenge. Parents can always come back here to see their child’s
progress in the challenge.
From there they can follow the promptsto customize their child’s very own fundraising page.

*NCCS will earn a minimum of $25,000 from Reading Eggs plus 100% of the donations collected by RTCC participants


Information about Reading Eggs from the developers:

Reading Eggs provides a comprehensive range of online reading lessons and e-books that teach
children aged 3–13 the literacy skills they need for lifetime reading success.
Why Try Reading Eggs?
• 91% of parents have noticed an improvement in their child’s reading ability since using Reading
Eggs
• Includes over 1500 ebooks
• Compatible on PC, Mac, iPad and Android
• Money-back guaranteed
Why Reading Eggs works
• Developed by expert educators with 20+ years’ experience
• Based on solid scientific research
• The program makes learning phonics and basic reading skills fun for 3–13 year olds
• Your child can progress through the one-on-one lessons at their own pace
• Regular progress reports and assessments track your child’s learning

Further Reading Eggs info:
Market:
Reading Eggs is an online literacy resource for children aged 3–13 years old. There are 2 programs
within Reading Eggs, Reading Eggs for 3–7 year olds and Reading Eggspress for 7–13 year olds. The
target market is parents of children aged 3–13 years old.
Product design
The Reading Eggs and Reading Eggspress programs each have their own unique worlds of interactive
reading and writing activities. The programs have been developed by a highly experienced team of
educational teachers, writers and developers who have created a highly visual, engaging and
interactive environment which motivates children to return again and again.
The visual aspect of the website immediately catches attention, with colorful animations and
characters that make learning fun. Children love to explore each unique world where there is so
much to see and do.
At the end of each Reading Eggs lesson children are rewarded with their efforts with a playful
'critter' that hatches from an egg. They can also earn golden coins that they can use to play games in
the ‘Arcade’. In Reading Eggspress children are encouraged to collect trading cards and trophies.
Children are also given an avatar which marks their place in the particular world they are in. The
avatar can be personalised by the child giving them a level of creative freedom.
This is all part of creating an environment which shows children that learning can be fun. In fact
many children don't even realise that they are learning while they work through the program,
because it is so much fun!
Product description:
Learning to read is an important skill for all children, and we wanted to make it an enjoyable
experience for children too. Children love working and playing on the computer and the Reading
Eggs and Reading Eggspress programs are all about bringing out the best in each child. These unique
worlds of interactive reading and writing activities help set children up with a positive attitude about
reading and learning for life. That’s a tall order, we know, but we are passionately committed to
delivering this to readers everywhere.
Reading Eggs
Full of educationally sound, fun and interactive activities, Reading Eggs focuses on the most
fundamental skill needed in school – reading. Children from 3 –7 years or older children struggling
with reading will enjoy the huge variety of reading lessons, activities and games that make up the
Reading Eggs program.
In addition to the 120 reading lessons in Reading Eggs there is the Reading Eggs World which caters
for children who already know the basics of reading but who still have much to learn about reading,
writing, spelling, and comprehension. In the Reading Eggs World, children have their own house to
decorate, a big shop and an avatar that can walk and travel to many new destinations on Reggie’s
bus. Children are able to choose their own adventure from a wide range of activities and places to
go, including the following content:

The Story Factory -this gives children an introduction to creative writing and they can put
together stories to enter in a weekly story writing competition.
• Driving Tests - has 15 sight word tests, 15 letters and sounds test and 15 content word tests.
Children are rewarded for correct completion with a driving game.
• Puzzle Park - children can access 32 word puzzles and practise sight word recognition.
• Skills Bank - holds 96 spelling lessons that take students up to the end of key stage 1.
• Storylands - this area builds reading, vocabulary and comprehension skills and is perfect for
children who have begun to read but aren’t quite ready for Reading Eggspress. It currently
includes 20 e-books to read.
• The Arcade - includes 24 arcade-style games to be used as rewards to motivate children to
keep learning. They need to earn Golden Eggs to play these so encourages them to work
through lessons and educational activities before using the arcade.
Reading Eggspress
Reading Eggspress continues the reading adventure by taking children to a brand new world
designed for 7 – 13 year olds focusing on comprehension and grammar. Reading Eggspress provides
a unique learning environment where students’ can improve their English language and
comprehension skills in a way that is exciting and relevant.

The Reading Eggspress program uses a spinning island which instantly engages children. They
explore a complete world with a wide variety of both learning and fun experiences. The range of
activities motivate students to return regularly to complete lessons, compete against others, earn
more rewards and improve their skills.
The Reading Eggspress website has an enormous range of learning resources, lessons, motivational
games and e-books. There are 4 areas of the Reading Eggspress World:
• Library - the Reading Eggspress Library holds more than 1500 e-books including illustrated
chapter books, full-color nonfiction books and a range of classics. Children can search for
books by topic, series, author, reading age or book title. New books are added regularly.

• The Comprehension Gym - children complete a placement test when they first visit the Gym
which places students at the correct level for their current ability. The Gym holds 200
interactive comprehension lessons over five broad levels from years 2 to years 6 with 40
lessons per year level.

• The Stadium – children compete in real time against students from around the world. The
exciting head-to-head contest tests skills in one of four areas – spelling, vocabulary, usage
and grammar.

• Apartment and Mall - children can use their golden eggs to buy avatar clothes and
apartment furniture. Within the apartment all the trophies, medals and trading cards
children have collected can be viewed and children can also complete a 100-level quest-style
game to expand and refresh learning and earn more golden eggs.

Progress within the Reading Eggspress program is measured by the completion of targets. These are
split over 4 levels and help give children some guidance and structure for learning and encourage
them to use all of the above areas.
Both the Reading Eggs and Reading Eggspress programs have a comprehensive reporting system that
tracks progress so that students and their parents can clearly see each child’s achievements.
There are currently over 2 million children using the Reading Eggs and Reading Eggspress program
around the world and over 90% of parents surveyed have reported a noticeable improvement in
their child’s reading skills.
Reading Eggs and Reading Eggspress is a program that really works by making learning a fun,
interactive and enjoyable experience for all involved.
For a program feature summary please visit:
https://assets.readingeggsassets.com/program_features_pdfs/US_combo.pdf


#readingeggs
#Home&SchoolMosaics
#read-a-thon4cancer
#love@home



I received a 3 month trial for Reading Eggs in exchange for my honest review through Home & School Mosaics. 





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2 comments:

Ed & Dottie said...

Sounds like a good product. It did show Andy's speak problem comes out in this kind of thing though. :(

Maureen said...

I'm in Australia, and my daughter used this program for her twins a couple of years ago - she's a teacher and was very impressed with it. Both the children were able to read before they started Prep last year, and are now steaming ahead in Grade One. It seems to give them confidence with no pressure.