Reading EggsPRESS for a 4 year old?

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

So, three weeks or so ago I let the kids try out Reading Eggs. Both ds6 and ds4 maxed out the placement test and they've been going at it at a quick pace as they haven't encountered anything "new" to them yet. Ds6 has gone a bit faster, partially because he tested out of their Mathseeds, and ds4 wanted to start Mathseeds at the beginning, so he's been doing those, too, with his time. Ds6 just finished Map 11/Lesson 110, ds4 is on Map 10/Lesson 103. Ds6 is racing forward because he's dying to try out the next level, Reading Eggspress. Ds4 wants to do everything that ds6 does (and their reading levels are pretty much the same) but I'm wondering if Reading Eggspress will be age inappropriate for a 4 year old? The description is for 7-13 year olds.

 

Can anyone with kids who have used the Reading Eggspress level give me a clue about the material? We used some codes so I haven't had to pay yet.

[boscopup]

When my kids did Reading Eggs/Eggspress, my then 7-8 year old did the Eggspress side (he was way beyond the eggs side). I didn't see any objectionable content. It was just... boring. Really, the only thing he liked about the program was making a cat army with Commander Jellyfish in charge. :lol: The actual reading/questions bored him. I doubt a 4 year old (or 6 year old) would like it that much.

 

Now they may have changed it since then, as this was a year ago that I used it. Can you not click on it now and try it out? Or do the kids have to get to a certain point? My oldest went straight to the Eggspress side the first day.

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

When my kids did Reading Eggs/Eggspress, my then 7-8 year old did the Eggspress side (he was way beyond the eggs side). I didn't see any objectionable content. It was just... boring. Really, the only thing he liked about the program was making a cat army with Commander Jellyfish in charge. :lol: The actual reading/questions bored him. I doubt a 4 year old (or 6 year old) would like it that much.

 

Now they may have changed it since then, as this was a year ago that I used it. Can you not click on it now and try it out? Or do the kids have to get to a certain point? My oldest went straight to the Eggspress side the first day.

 

 

I don't want to mess up their progress reports by me looking around and doing stuff on it. I told ds6 he couldn't start it until he finished map 12/Lesson 120 of the Eggs side.

[Greenmama2]

You get two different progress reports. I agree it's kinda boring.

[morgan]

We had a free trial and my dd6 was all excited to try it, but she didn't like it that much. I don't remember anything particularly inappropriate, it just wasn't as much fun as Reading Eggs had been.

[ThoughtfulMama]

My almost 5 year-old maxed out the pretest for Reading Eggs, so I gave him Eggspress access too. He did well on the comprehension stuff, but couldn't play many of the games yet because I haven't taught him any grammar. So it wasn't much fun for him, and we didn't do anything past the free trial.

 

It seems to me that the two programs are discontinuous and Eggspress requires some extra skills that they never actually teach like parts of speech.

[boscopup]

Your child can start Eggspress without messing up the eggs side. They're separate. Let her try it and see what she thinks. You can also reset it at any time. I actually had to reset my son, because he placed higher than he needed to be (he had never done inference and such).

[Grover]

Why are you making him do it at all if he maxed out the test? DS found reading eggs horribly boring (so did DD) and reading eggs not much better. Nothing in appropriate though, just much too mich repetition and far to slow paced / small steps for them.

[La Texican]

Xpress was for skills such as looking up words in a simulated dictionary with tabs such as a-d, e-g, h-m...z., and also for reading short texts and then answering comprension questions similar to a school reading textbook. The library has a selection of genres of fiction and non fiction. The work is more schoolish and less cutesy. I did not pay for an extra year for my son to do the Xpress. I did just buy a new year if the eggs for my daughter. If you haven't tried the "skills bank" in eggs yet ask your kids to do a couple levels in the eggs skill bank and sit and watch a couple of lessons. I think it's really cool how they teach spelling. I was tempted to renew my sons subscription just so he could do the skills bank. Instead he's using Khan for his math and my daughter's using eggs for her reading. b-pup is right that the xpress will not interfere with their map levels so go try. I didn't see much of xpress but it didn't seem to be locked and leveled like the eggs. The kids could choose their own level each time they chose a book in xpress. If you do shop at the mall on express you won't see your clothes or pets you bought until you go find them in your apartment. Yeah, didn't know that at first.

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

Why are you making him do it at all if he maxed out the test? DS found reading eggs horribly boring (so did DD) and reading eggs not much better. Nothing in appropriate though, just much too mich repetition and far to slow paced / small steps for them.

 

 

*shrug* They like it. I didn't know enough about the levels when we started (the maxed out test put them at lesson 71/120), and they're perfectly happy playing. Ds4 has been playing MoreStarfall.com for a year, even though there isn't anything really new or challenging at this point. He just turned 4 in March, and I figured review would be good since I've been too sick for the past 7 months of pregnancy to teach him anything, and he's been picking up stuff on his own. Plus, it's addressed aspects of reading, like testing comprehension, that I hadn't worked on with him before, so it's been a good experience.

[MrSmith]

My DS used Reading Eggspress last year. Mostly we used the library to try and improve his comprehension. But we found it didn't work very well. For one thing, he could cheat :glare: Also, some of the questions on the Quiz were so obtuse, even I couldn't say any single answer was correct.

 

It seemed to me a good idea poorly executed.