My son has moderate intellectual disability and is well below grade level in all subjects. He learns well by mnemonics and visual representation. Reading Eggs worked well for him in this regard and it was a great incentive for him because he REALLY wanted to unlock the creature inside the egg. It goes at a gentle enough pace for most typical learners. My son needs much repetition though, so we often had to repeat lessons. He resisted repeating lessons because he was spurred on to get new creatures unlocked.
Whenever we hit a wall and he wasn't able to advance further, I would take him back about 10-30 lessons and start over. It was much easier to keep him on track with this by resetting the level. Doing this re-set the game to an earlier level. He didn't lose his earned points, but the creature is lost until he completes that level again. And that was heartbreaking for him.
Grade levels used
preK
K
Pros
Low to no prep for mom, engaging for kids, enticement of eggs to open was a bonus for my son, good for special needs
Cons
Sounds are not always accurate (vowels are added in on some consonant sounds). Repeating a series of lessons might require re-sealing the eggs and losing their earned work.
We tried it, and my older son did benefit from it, and enjoyed the arcade-style games..except where the student is required to place an animal in increasing danger of getting killed, eaten, splatted, or exploded. None of us understood why it was necessary to include that kind of subject matter.
However, we found that that kind of content seemed mainly limited to the earlier lessons which are ostensibly aimed at the younger users, and at the end of the Reading Eggs lesson range, when my older son completed all Reading Eggs had to offer, there didn't seem to be any of that. Unfortunately, there was plenty of it at the earlier end, where my pre-K son was, and it really upset him.
If they removed the content depicting willful harm to living creatures, I would find no fault with Reading Eggs whatsoever.
My older son did, however, find ways to "game the system" and I had to watch him to make sure he wasn't just clicking on wrong answers until by elimination he got the right one, because he wanted to be done and doing something else, and didn't feel the need to actually TRY.
Reading Eggs did supplement my phonics lessons with him, and he did graduate from it, and benefit from it, and move on to reading books of his choice.
My younger son, on the other hand, reached his point of saturation with C-V-C words and was unable to put sentences together. He is just too young, and no amount of teaching is going to make him ready to move into real reading yet, and that is fine. It isn't developmentally appropriate to expect reading that young.
Overall, I would recommend Reading Eggs as a way to help children learn to read, particularly if the parent wants something self-paced and automated rather than teacher-intensive.
Grade levels used
preK
1
Pros
fun (mostly), easy, engaging, easy on the parent
Cons
sometimes hard to understand the spoken word, sometimes the animations were gross or needlessly violent (harm to animals)
Do you recommend?
yes, except for those who are emotionally sensitive
My kids really enjoyed using this program. I wasn't as thrilled about it because I felt like the material could have been better presented. Some elements of pronunciation or the order of instruction didn't make sense to me. My kindergarten son was already reading, so it was fine for him. My preschooler had a hard time making sense of some of the activities. Not my favorite computer program.
Most people seem to love this program, however, my children did not. It was a constant battle. My oldest would cry about having to do it, and it seemed too fast paced for my son. The only reason we did it was because it was a requirement for the online public school we were apart of.
My youngest son loved this program! He enjoyed every lesson and always looked forward to logging on. The games are fun and educational. Some levels are repetitive in regards to the words learned, but I imagine the point is to reinforce the words learned previously in each level, but my son didn't seem to mind. He enjoyed earning his "eggs".
My son really loved reading eggs, he was pretty upset when he completed everything and had to move on. I feel it gave him a great foundation for reading and the instruction was adequate. Sometimes I had to explain one of the games for him but otherwise It was simple enough.
Two of my children used this program. One of them liked it, moved through it quickly, and it was good reinforcement for what she already knew. The other child is dyslexic, this is the only online program she ever stuck with, and didn't get frustrated from. so it worked for her also.