Yr1 Teachers/Parents - opinions on Reading Eggs?

[Hooliesmoolies]

I have just signed up for a free 5 week trial of reading eggs. My daughter has had fun playing with it today, but I'm a little confused about it. I thought that it was supposed to be phonics based, but (not being an expert) there does seem to be a lot of look and learn too. My DD has done well with her reading, but her reading is stronger than her phonics knowledge. I am basing this on the way she approaches sounding out some unknown words. I was thinking that if Reading Eggs was phonics based then it might help her to improve her decoding. So what do you all think of it? Does it help with that or is there something better? She likes the computer game bit of it, so if there were something computer based it would be good. Thanks!

[Meita]

Hiya, not a teacher but DS did some Reading Eggs last year (also started with a 5 week free trial, then went on to get more free weeks with all sorts of codes and stuff)

As far as I understand, Reading Eggs uses 'analytic phonics' rather than 'synthetic phonics'. Unlike in synthetic phonics, analytic phonics encourages using clues such as first letter sounds and pictures to work out what a word could be, if I understand it correctly. But still phonics, in that basically you are still sounding out and blending the 'pure' phonics sounds, except when you encounter a word you aren't yet able to sound out.

I found the first 40 lessons or so of Reading Eggs to be pretty close to 'synthetic phonics' but from lesson 41 onwards, there were lots and lots of not-yet-decodable words, where the child is encouraged to remember the word as a whole, or work it out from clues. We stopped using Reading Eggs at that point (also, DS got bored). But someone on here said that their DD continued to enjoy it, but that they as the parent sat next to the child and 'did' those exercises for them that involved that sort of 'guessing' - there is still lots of other fun and useful stuff in there, apparently.

[mrz]

I'm a Y1 teacher and wouldn't personally recommend it but lots of MN posters swear by it

[erin99]

I don't know, but DS enjoyed the free trial and decided it was boring about 3 days after we paid up for the full version. Waste of money for us.

I agree with you that the bits I saw (may not be representative) were whole words rather than the isolated sounds that they are taught at school. But that may be because Reading Eggs assessed him as knowing all his letters.

[Hooliesmoolies]

Meita that was massively helpful! Thanks. I don't know if my daughter has been taught Analytic Phonics, but what she doesn't do is approach her sounding out in a very phonics based way. I was hoping for something that would help her some of the more complex sounds. I think that reading eggs might, I was just surprised at how they did it. She's further forward into their lessons, so I may just see how she goes.

Mrz would you not recommend it because it is not really strongly phonics based? Or just because you don't think it's necessary? I don't want to get my DD started on something which isn't going to help (bearing in mind I think she could do with something which is highly phonics based because that is the bit of reading she seems to find hardest).

erin99 we have a five week trial - if my DD isn't bored by the end of that I'll be shocked. Mind you, it is the only time she gets to play on a computer so maybe the novelty won't wear off

[mrz]

I wouldn't recommend it because it isn't how phonics/reading is taught in UK schools and for some children that can be very confusing. Unfortunately no one can predict in advance which children will cope with mixed methods and which children will struggle.

[bakingtins]

I'm not a teacher but did use reading eggs with my first son and found it helpful, if a bit American. ( dratted ant drove me bonkers)
With DS2 I used "Teach your monster to read" which is a free website (AFAIK level 1 now available for tablets too) funded by the Usborne foundation. It seems to closely follow how phonics is taught in schools, and my DS2 really enjoyed it.

[SummerSazz]

My dd's loved reading eggs and 'winning' games to play once a section was completed. I liked it because it made playing with words fun with hopping frogs, building walls and popping bubbles. No problems at all for my DC and phonics teaching but that could be just the type of children they are. Dd1 started about 5 and then dd2 wanted to at 3ish. She started school at just 4 as a competent reader. TBF she did also benefit by osmosis from Dd1 learning to read at school (reading at home every day) and the songbirds type books we had at home.

[SausagesAndBananas]

Reading eggs was awful, so repetitive and dull and dry.
Mine enjoyed it for the first couple of goes and haven't asked about it since.

[Hooliesmoolies]

So far, I think my DD finds it a bit dull, but she wants to move on to the next levels once she has finished. It is quite repetitive. She doesn't get if she has read and matched words once, why she needs to do it three times. But hey, for now it's free