Reading Eggs {Review}

Disclaimer: I received a FREE 1-year subscription to Reading Eggs through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

Reading Eggs is a comprehensive, online program for children that can be accessed through a tablet or a desktop or laptop computer. Reading Eggs by Blake eLearning Inc. is a great way to allow your children to experience the fun of online playing while learning valuable literacy and math skills. The Blake eLearning Inc. program lineup contains:

Reading Eggs Junior – a fun introduction to literacy skills for children ages 2-4 years old.

Reading Eggs– a step by step method to introduce phonics to children ages 3-7 years old.

Reading Eggspress – a great way to reinforce literacy concepts for older children ages 7-13 years old.

MathSeeds – a fun math learning program that builds important math skills for children ages 3-9.

Reading Eggs

Reading Eggs is a comprehensive program that teaches literacy skills to children ages 2-13. It contains lessons that provide learning opportunities in the National Reading Panel’s suggested essential components of reading instruction. These include:

Phonemic awareness – builds awareness that speech is made up of sounds and those sounds make words, syllables, and phonemes.
Phonics – building letter-sound relationship awareness
Fluency – children build rapid word recognition skills
Vocabulary – new words are introduced with pictures to build vocabulary
Comprehension – there are over 2500 ebooks included, each with their own comprehension quiz

Key Features

Key features of the Reading Eggs program include:

My Lessons – 120 reading lessons each consisting of a variety of instructional activities.
Storylands – features 20 lessons with a focus on developing reading, vocabulary, and comprehension skills. Storylands also includes 20 wonderful books and lots of fun rewards.
Spelling – 96 carefully graded spelling lessons that develop a wide range of spelling strategies.
The Story Factory – children can write their very own storybooks and choose full-color illustrations to match their story.
My Program – at the completion of a reading lesson children are recommended four e-books to read that match their reading level.

MathSeeds

MathSeeds is an interactive online program for children 3-9 years old that offers lessons and activities that build math skills in multiple areas of numbers, shapes, and measurements. It is a great way to gain additional math practice for reluctant students or students who may be struggling with math concepts. The bright colors and fun activities keep children engaged and excited throughout their learning time.

Key Features

Key features of MathSeeds include:

A wide variety of lessons and activities that have been created by educational experts. Each lesson is carefully structured to build early mathematical skills.
Once a lesson is complete, it can be repeated as many times as needed.
Mathseeds provides parents with a simple “dashboard” to show each child’s mathematical progress.
Children can progress at their own level.
Each child can create their own avatar/online character.
Golden Acorns rewards can be used to add items to the child’s online treehouse or avatar.
Children love collecting the Pets – a new pet hatches at the end of every lesson.
Children receive a certificate after successfully completing the quiz at the end of every map.

Bonus Material

There is great downloadable bonus material provided for each level of Reading Eggs. These include worksheets bundles that go with each lesson. The bundles contain a sheet that describes the lesson and the concepts that are being taught. It also includes additional learning activities that the children can do for greater retention. There are also worksheets that can be printed out and given to the child to complete for a more hands-on learning experience.

There are also downloadable progress maps that take the children throughout each level of Reading Eggs. This is a great incentive for children who do well with reward systems and sticker charts.

Our Experience

We decided to try out Reading Eggs Junior with our newly 3-year-old busy boy. He has been asking to do schoolwork like his older brother and I thought this might be just the thing to entertain him and let him build valuable skills he can use when he’s ready to start reading.

I downloaded the app onto his iPad and introduced it to him one afternoon. He started playing around with it and had it completely figured out within a few minutes. From there he played for almost an hour straight and I would hear him laughing out loud to himself and talking to the app. It was really adorable.

It was a sad moment for him when his screen time was over. He was sure he needed to keep playing and I really think he would have played all afternoon if I had let him. Since that day, Reading Eggs and MathSeeds are top of the list for things he chooses to play when he gets his screen time. I am so happy to know that while he’s playing, he’s also learning so much.

I was recently doing a math assessment with a first grader and while doing the assessment, my 3 year old was often answering the math questions before the first grader could. I was actually shocked because I know these are things that I haven’t taught him yet. I really believe the time he has spent on Reading Eggs and MathSeeds has allowed him to advance in his learning in big steps.

I am very happy with our experience with Reading Eggs and MathSeeds and I know it will remain a part of our learning journey with this little guy for a long time to come.