If you’re a homeschooling parent looking for a fun and effective way to teach your children to read or you just want to provide them with a little supplemental help, you’re in the right place!
Each of my kids has used Reading Eggs at different points in our 12+ years of homeschooling and they have all enjoyed it! I figured it’s about time for an in-depth review to give you all the details of how it works, our favorite features, and answers to some frequently asked questions. 💕
Disclosure: *This post may include affiliate links. As an affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Read the disclosures and terms for more information.
This post is sponsored by Reading Eggs. All opinions are my own. Plus, we’ve been using it for years anyway. 😉
What's Covered:
What is Reading Eggs and How Does It Work?
Reading Eggs is a comprehensive online reading program for kids ages 2-13. It uses engaging video lessons and interactive content to teach your kids to decode words, build reading fluency and comprehension, and develop their vocabulary.
Children complete the interactive video lessons that teach phonics and other reading skills with fun animations. The activities have enough repetition to solidify learning, but plenty of variety to keep them fun and interesting.
As they complete the tasks, the children earn “eggs” that they can exchange later for various rewards, which gives them incentives to keep working hard and making progress.
The Reading Eggs curriculum is divided into different programs for each age range:
- Reading Eggs Junior (ages 2–4): Toddlers build alphabet knowledge and ready‑to‑read skills.
- Reading Eggs (Ages 3–7): This is the main program. It teaches sight words, phonics skills, spelling, and more.
- Fast Phonics (ages 5–10): Build your child’s reading fluency with these phonics lessons.
- Reading Eggspress (ages 7–13): Older kids focus on reading comprehension and more in-depth spelling and grammar.
⭐️ Our Top 7 Favorite Features of Reading Eggs
Fun Lessons Kids ASK to Do!
My children really enjoy Reading Eggs. My 7-year-old, in particular, can be a little reluctant about reading lessons, but when we started him on Reading Eggs, that completely turned around! He asks to do his Reading Eggs every day. He loves the fun animations, earning eggs and winning prizes, and being rewarded at the end of quizzes. And of course, doing some of the reinforcing games at the end is a big incentive for him!
Frugal Options for Multiple Children
With a large family and a limited budget, I LOVE that Reading Eggs includes up to four kids on one subscription! You can even have multiple kids using Reading Eggs on separate devices simultaneously. This comes in handy and is much more economical than having separate subscriptions for each child.
Lessons to Fit a Wide Age Range
Reading Eggs has lessons for kids ages 2 to 13. But it’s not only for teaching kids to read. You could have a child learning to read with the Reading Eggs program, one building their phonics skills with Fast Phonics, and an older child building up their spelling and grammar skills with Reading Eggspress. That covers a lot of learning needs with one subscription!
Math Lessons Can be Included, Too!
Another cool feature is that you can optionally add their math program to your subscription! Mathseeds is targeted for ages 3-9. The kids enjoy the same kind of personalized learning and interactive and fun video lessons. The program covers K-3rd math concepts and uses real-world problems to help them practice their math skills
Tailor the Program to Fit Your Kids’ Needs
Reading Eggs goes at your child’s pace. There are also ways to adjust it to fit their current level. When you start Reading Eggs, you can use the placement test to determine where exactly your child should begin. This is particularly helpful for kids who have already had some reading experience and need the extra instruction. Placement tests can be taken any time if you want to reasses.
In addition, parents have the option to manually adjust where they are in a level. I love that they leave the control in the teaching parent’s hands!
Tools for Parents to Monitor Progress
As they progress through Reading Eggs, your children will complete quizzes and assessments. When you log into the family dashboard, you’ll find tools to help you evaluate their progress. (You can opt to have report updates emailed to you as well, which this busy mama finds very helpful!!)
Here’s the progress information you’ll find for each child in the family dashboard:
- Their estimated reading age, based on how they’re doing in the lessons
- The skills and sight words they’ve mastered
- Time on task as well as lessons and quizzes completed
- Lexile level and growth
- Certificates earned
- And more!
Bonus Extras and Print Products, Too!
There is so much to Reading Eggs that it’s hard to cover in one post. But I wanted to mention a few other items you’ll want to be aware of, too!
- Free downloadable worksheets and color activity pages for each level
- Additional products available for purchase in their store:
- Print workbooks and ebooks
- Reading rewards sticker book
- Flash cards
- Puzzles
- And more!
Is Reading Eggs a Full Curriculum or a Supplement?
Reading Eggs can be used either way. While many families choose to use it as their main reading curriculum, we have always used it as a supplement and to help boost learning for reluctant readers.
Up until middle school, our kids have a checklist of tasks to complete each day for their homeschool lessons. Those who are using Reading Eggs have that on their checklist, too. They get to do their Reading Eggs lesson and games when they have completed all their other school tasks. Even if we used it as our core curriculum for these subjects, it’s a great incentive for them to finish their other work because it’s so FUN!
Will Reading Eggs Work for My Child?
If you have a struggling learner, Reading Eggs can get them excited about reading activities and help strengthen their skills and fluency. The repetition and interactive nature of the program reinforce their learning.
Reading Eggs also works with various learning styles. Visual learners, auditory learners, and kinesthetic learners will all be engaged with each lesson. If you’re on the fence or aren’t sure if it’s a good fit for your child, you can always try their generous 30-day free trial!
Can My Child Use Reading Eggs Independently?
Generally speaking, yes. Reading Eggs was designed to be used independently once placement test and settings are complete. Parents can monitor progress in the dashboard or get email reports.
However, with some kids, it might help for you to sit with or near them while they complete the lessons. Most of my kids have used it independently, but I have one kiddo who needs me to be there to keep him on-task and actually thinking through the activities.
Also watch for older siblings “helping” by giving them the answers. 🙂 They mean well, but you can teach them to encourage their brother or sister instead of telling them what to do!
What If I Am Trying to Limit Screen Time?
I totally understand this concern. We try not to overdo things with screen time, too. I keep an eye on how much screen time my kids have overall in the day, whether it’s with educational content or entertainment. Reading Eggs is so fun, that it could even be used as a fun reward, especially the games at the end! So if you tend to give your kids a little quality learning screen time each day, consider using Reading Eggs for that.
If you find that the lesson plus the games is just too long, I suggest alternating it so that one day they do the lesson and the next day they do the games and extra activities. They’ll still be motivated to work through the program and that will give them time to explore all the features without overdoing screen time!
Is Reading Eggs a Christian or Secular Resource?
Reading Eggs is a secular program, so you’re going to want to keep that in mind. I always recommend that parents are diligent to check content for any curriculum they use. For Reading Eggs, there are two areas where this has come up for us as Christian parents:
- Earth Age – You may run across one or two instances of “millions of years” type language referenced, such as in the context of a dinosaur-themed lesson. We decided to overlook it as it was just in those few instances and we have many conversations about this topic in our home. We just zoomed through and moved on.
- Content in the Library – Reading Eggs has a Library feature where kids can select from many ebooks at their level to read. We haven’t used this feature, but if you choose to, remember that this is a secular program. If you’re likely to avoid or monitor content at your local library, I would do the same with the Reading Eggs Library. If you have content concerns, I recommend one of the following:
- Sit with your child to choose Library selections together.
- Use the parent feature provided that allows you to remove books you’d rather they not access (you can search the library with terms such as “identity,” “monster,” “myth,” “dads,” etc. and then use the parent control to block those titles that show up).
- Choose not to use the Library feature. The Reading Eggs program is complete and effective either way and has worked great for us without this particular feature!
Bottom Line on Reading Eggs
We have really enjoyed Reading Eggs in our homeschool and appreciate the extra assist it gives us for reinforcing reading (and math) skills! It’s fun, effective, and easy for our homeschool.
Check out Reading Eggs today! Make sure you take advantage of the generous 30-day free trial, too, to see if it’s a good fit for your family. 💕
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