Recently we were offered a subscription to Reading Eggs to review. Smallest liked it. A lot. I’ve been meaning to blog about it and as usual haven’t got a round tuit, and the subscription has expired.
This is a Bad Thing. There is little more upsetting that a disappointed toddler. And when she tries to log in to Reading Eggs and can’t, well, she’s pretty disappointed. She tends to make her opinion heard at this point – throughout the entire house. Right now I can hear Small trying the old bait and switch, offering CBeebies or any other games site to distract her, but it isn’t working. She wants her Reading Eggs.
I like this. I like that she wants to play on a site that is teaching her to read without her knowing it. We surround her with everything she needs to develop literacy skills – she has books, crayons, magnetic letters on the fridge. I read her picture books and longer passages, she ‘reads’ them back to me. I’ve got apps on my phone that go into phonic awareness, we’ve got Bob Books about for her to try to sound out herself if she feels inclined. And Reading Eggs is part of that multi pronged approach, a site that allows her to go at her own speed through developing phonic awareness, and the fact that she goes back to it time and again says to me that it’s pitched beautifully for her.
She’s very very close to breaking through into reading I suspect. But I said that about Big for years before she actually took the leap, so I’m not about to hold my breath. The extra tools that we have now mean that hopefully the whole experience will be much less painful that it was all those (7!) years ago. Certainly smartphone apps that toddlers interact with are a completely different ball game to montessori pink materials, but in many ways they meet the same needs. Many are self correcting – won’t actually let you slot in the wrong letter. And apps and programs never get tired, so they don’t snap at the child for going over the necessary skills for the 67th time. (Please tell me I’m not the only parent who has a built in limit for how many times you can read the same book in one evening??)
So tomorrow I’ll be hopefully sorting out a subscription to continue our relationship with Reading Eggs. And if I’ve tempted you with it, you can have an extended trial by using the code UKB24MBT when you sign up.
The only negative I’ll say about it is that I have been slightly unimpressed with the number of marketing emails I’ve received since we signed up with the site. It’s several a week. But I’ve no reason to suspect they won’t stop if I asked them too. Just don’t want anyone to complain if they feel harassed!
disclosure we were sent a code for an extended free trial in order to review this product, and will be getting a further subscription period for actually getting around to publishing a review. I hope 🙂 Links are affiliate links.
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