Does anyone have any thoughts on either of these programs? Do they help? Would you recommend one or the other? Thinking of getting a subscription for my kiddos to one for this year that they can play on if I need to work individually with one and I'm not sure which way to go =) TIA
We've tried both and I prefer reading eggs. My kids loved reading eggs. We didn't try ABC mouse extensively but what little we did do with it I definitely liked reading eggs better personally. My 6yr old was a bit bored with it more recently but my 5yr old and 3yr old loved it.
We have used ABCMouse, and our kids loved it. It was nice for our 3 year old who is autistic, since it's very visual. However, it was tedious because he can't manipulate the mouse to navigate it on his own so it took him and I alot longer to do things and he couldn't play the games because of that. My 4 year old loved it and aced it in a month. I don't know if they have (for lack of better wording) lower standards than other places, or if he just catches on quickly. For those reasons it seemed kind of pointless to continue paying for it, so we don't use it now, but it was nice while we had it. I wish I could tell you about Reading Eggs, but I have never heard of it before. I AM thinking of checking it out though, now.
We just signed up for ABC mouse for my 3 and 4 year old. They really like it. Looking at Reading Eggs, (which I had never heard of before this post) I think that we might do that one next year. Right now ABC Mouse fits where the boys are at, but Reading Eggs does look like it will take them beyond ABC Mouse. One pro to ABC mouse is that you can fit 3 kids on one account. It looks like you have to pay to add children to Reading Egg. ( I could be wrong about that, but that is what I just read on their pricing page.) That is why I will stick with ABC Mouse for now and move to Reading Egg when they have outgrown ABC Mouse.
Thanks Loriann! I hadn't really checked in depth about pricing for ABC mouse and it is good to know I could use both kids on one account. That may make the decision for me this year....
We started using Reading Eggs in August with my then 4 1/2 year old. It is only phonics, reading, and spelling. I think ABC Mouse is more subjects. For us, Reading Eggs has been perfect. My ds is now reading pretty well. We do print and use the activity sheets. They have really helped him to learn to write his letters and words. I did go to ABC Mouse at one point and checked it out. I did not subscribe. I felt my ds was past ABC Mouse. I think it would have been alright when he was 3 or 4, but I had lots of educational cd-roms that worked just as well for those ages. I did not need a program that encompassed everything as we were doing written curriculum as well. I think it depends on your needs. If you are needing something for a child to work on while you are working one on one with another child, I would suggest buying a jumpstart preschool or kindergarten CD or getting one of the disney preschool or kindergarten sets from Target. The only reason we subscribed to reading eggs is that the homeschool buyers co-op had a years subscription for $18 this time last year. I don't regret it as it had the written activity sheets to encompass handwriting and phonics on paper. I would not have purchased it for the full price though. My oldest will be 12 this year and she learned to read and much more with a set of Clifford the Big Red dog cd-roms. It had learning activities, thinking adventures, and Reading. It was one price and it is mine forever. It has went through 3 more children and helped them immensely. We had a Clifford cd-rom set, a Caillou Kindergarten cd-rom set, Disney Preschool and Kindergarten set, Reader Rabbit and Jumpstart cd-roms from preschool through 4th grade. I have really only had to buy something for each grade level 1 time and then used it over and over with each younger child for that one price. They have went through all 4 of my children and saved us a lot of money. I don't see the need for a subscription program when you can go up the road to Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Big Lots, or your local school supply store and spend $10 and be set for your child and their younger siblings for years.
I used Reading Eggs this past school year for several months and the kids liked it- for a 1st and 3rd grader. I feel it offers a lot of skills to practice- phonemic awareness to abc order to spelling, etc. My older one worked on the next level up- Reading Eggspress which continues with reading longer passages, and comprehension questions and vocabulary as well. It was great. I liked that Reading Eggs continues with the child- as in once the basics are down they can work on fluency, comp. and vocab through Reading Eggspress. We were on a tight budget at the time- and now otherwise my kids would still be doing it. I have no experience with ABC mouse though- can you get a free trial for both and see which one you and the kids prefer? Good luck! =)
Some of my friends' kids are using Reading Eggs. It seems useful. My DD has been using beestar for reading. This online learning way is more effective for her. She does the worksheets as playing games. Lisa
We have used both. We used Reading Eggs for 6 months and ABC mouse for a year. Reading Eggs is just reading. Older kids might find it too babish (my oldest did) just because of the design and characters. Older girls might not mind so much... ABCmouse offers more subjects for the same price/year-including social studies/science/health and music and art and more. For the price I'd go with ABCMouse. My kids begged to do ABCMouse. I prefer ClickNKids (which includes clicknread and clicknspell) over Reading Eggs personally. ClickNRead is on sale until midnight 6/30/12 for only $29.99 for a LIFETIME subscription. But my kids really like Starfall too and it's free if you're just going for reading/phonics....
My kids love Reading Eggs!! We also use Starfall (the regular free part and the "more"), Ooka Island, and Click 'N Read (though we all have a hard time understanding what the dog is saying a lot of the time on this one). My kids love anything hands on.. if they were young enough I would get them ABCMouse too...lol My little guy is happier tagging along with the others so nothing of his own yet.
