We’re pretty sure that the kid is going to start homeschooling either after this year’s pre-k or after kindergarten, since I really am not too sure about commuting an hour and ten minutes each way to and from school. As a result, we are always looking for new ways to introduce school-related stuff without it being too painful.
As I was flipping through Parents magazine (I have no idea why we are still getting it; we had a one-year free subscription after the kid was born. He’s four now, so I am pretty sure it ran out!), I saw an ad for Reading Eggs and decided to check it out. There was a code in the magazine for a free trial lasting five weeks, so we signed up. Turns out, the kid loves it! He knows his letters and some of the sounds that letters make, but he had not started reading until this program.
I am not a teacher, but it looks like the program uses a combination of a phonics and sight words approach. The kids earn different characters as they “crack the reading egg” at the end of the lesson, which my kid really likes. There are 100 lessons currently, and the website says that it is geared towards children ages 4-8. No prior reading experience is necessary.
In terms of customer support, we had a small technical issue, and upon e-mailing technical support, we got a response within 2 business days and a 3-week trial extension for the inconvenience.
If you want to try it out, the code we used in the Parents magazine was USA26PAR. According to the advertisement, the offer is good through September 30, 2010. Let me know what you think!
I signed up for the free trial for my daughter who is in Kindergarten. She LOVES it! She is learning so quickly, and even her teacher has commented about how far Avery has come. Honestly, she has gone from knowing most letter sounds to reading complete sentences in less than 3 weeks. She enjoys playing so much that we “punish” her by threatening to take away reading egg time if she doesn’t change her behavior. I guess we’ll be signing up for a year. I’m going to start searching for coupon codes for that
Hi Christy,
In addition to coupon codes, be on the lookout for e-mails from Reading Eggs – I have gotten a couple with special pricing incentives to sign up. Amy