Are you considering investing in ABC Reading Eggs for your family? Our ABC Reading Eggs review will cover what it is, why kids and parents love it and how you can trial the program for FREE for 30 days. There’s never been a better time to sign your family up to ABC Reading Eggs.
Sharing the gift of reading
Learning to read is one of the most important skills for children to develop. However, reading is taken for granted by most of us, that is, until it’s time to help our own kids learn to read. Cue the panic button! Sharing a love of reading with our kids has always been a priority so from the very start we incorporated plenty of books per day. But it’s one thing to love reading and another to know how to teach a child to read.
After becoming a mum, I learned that in the first years of life a human brain develops at its fastest. No pressure, right?! This got me looking for opportunities to nurture a love of reading in our kids. The other motivation for trialing ABC Reading Eggs was our eldest heading to Prep aka BIG school. We downloaded ABC Reading Eggs after hearing our chosen primary school used the program. Up until this point I had no idea that the reading and learning programs is actually aligned with the Australian Curriculum.
To date, we’ve been using the ABC Reading Eggs program for around four months and our kids love it! Read on to find out more about this guilt free screen time option for busy families.
Overview of ABC Reading Eggs
Watch our 2-minute video for a quick overview, then read below for more information.
ABC Reading Eggs Australia Review
ABC Reading Eggs is a research based, learn to read program for kids 2-13 years designed by educators with over 30 years’ experience. Currently, there are over 20 million users across 169 countries using ABC Reading Eggs at home and school. The multi-award winning program focuses around the five keys to reading success – phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency.
The ABC Reading Eggs program includes hundreds of online reading lessons and thousands of e-books. By using the ABC Reading Eggs program, children can learn to read in an engaging and enjoyable way. All the lessons are game-like activities that encourage children to play as they learn. When they succeed, kids are rewarded with prizes, such as the golden eggs they receive at the end of each activity completed.
Why the focus on Phonics?
The phonics method is widely promoted by researchers, literacy experts and teachers as the most effective way children learn to read. This is why so many early ABC Reading Eggs users were excited to see Fast Phonics added to the app. You can find out more about phonics here.
ABC Reading Eggs Review – by age group
ABC Reading Eggs Junior (2-4 Years)
This is where it all starts for youngsters. Our toddler loves the fun games and activities that build alphabet knowledge, number and colour identification and ready‑to‑read skills. There’s also 250+ read-aloud books for little ones to click through, all carefully chosen for toddlers with age‑appropriate stories and nursery rhymes. Prepare to be blown away by what your toddler can do!
ABC Reading Eggs (3-7 Years)
Upon starting prep, children start to learn the sounds that letters make. All of a sudden, two previously unused words are thrown to the top of every parent’s vocabulary: “phonics” and “sight words”. Children who use ABC Reading Eggs in the early years have a head start – the early maps in ABC Reading Eggs teach kids the sounds the letters make through fun games, and the kids start to get used to identifying sight words by jumping across leap pads and other simple “touch” activities.
ABC Reading Eggs “offers a range of fun, educational games and activities” all which were developed by teachers. So let them play and learn as soon as you can and in turn, you’ll relieve a lot of the pressure when they start school!
Fast Phonics (5-10 Years)
Fast Phonics is a program that offers lessons covering key phonics skills like letter sound recognition, blending, and spelling. This happens within a wide range of activities that feel like a game including really fun Yeti characters and “mountain peaks” that kids have to pass to move on to the next level. Upon clearing a peak, kids are given a book to read and a quiz to complete. By completing the section they earn coins to spend in the Yeti shop where they can buy different avatars. This is a feature our daughter loves! The lessons are short, which works really well for us.
ABC Reading Eggspress (7-13 Years)
ABC Reading Eggspress sets a precedent with children that after reading the designated chapter of a book, at the end they will do a short comprehension test. Karen, mum of a seven-year-old who uses ABC Reading Eggs shared that the first time her son did the test he couldn’t answer a lot of the questions, but the second time was very different. According to Karen, once he realised that this “comprehension thing” wasn’t going away, he started reading very differently, he started reading to understand, rather than just reading a bunch of words that happened to be side by side. And yes, it translated into his everyday reading – he started paying more attention.
This is an example of how ABC Reading Eggs and more specifically, ABC Reading Eggspress takes a child’s reading to the next level. They will race against the clock to answer questions about grammar, spelling and proper usage of words, and will hone their comprehension skills.
ABC Mathseeds (3-9 years)
Mathseeds offers 200 surprisingly fun math lessons, exciting rewards, printable worksheets and more! The fun‑filled learning adventure is designed to teach essential early numeracy skills while nurturing a love of maths.
The ABC Reading Eggs Library
The library is one of the program’s best-kept secrets. It has a slider for you to choose the age of your children, then you can search for topics that are likely to interest your child. Attention all parents of school aged children: this could be the solution to your home reading problem! When they choose the book and it’s a topic around their interest, it’s a lot easier. So, parents, if you have children who are reluctant readers, do yourself a favour and check this out. For beginner readers, you can also choose to have the sound on delivering an audiobook experience.
What we love about ABC Reading Eggs
- First up, it’s guilt free, positive screen time. Our kids ask to play ABC Reading Eggs. They think it’s so much fun playing the ‘games’. Little do they know I am secretly growing their reading and math skills as I cook dinner and they giggle away on the couch.
- The program helps your child learn at their own pace, gradually building their reading confidence and rewarding them every step of the way. Each time a child logs in, the program tracks their progress and sends a regular report via email to parents with additional ways to support the child’s learning. You can also access the reports via the ABC Reading Eggs platform.
- We also think that in these uncertain times, it’s great to know you have a fallback learning to read program organised for the kids. Another big plus is the ‘bonus material’ section (see red arrows in image below) that contains a heap of printables. If you’ve got a printer, you’ve got worksheets too!
- ABC Reading Eggs is a kidSAFE certified website, so you can feel confident knowing that your child is spending time learning in a safe and fun online environment – free from advertising and distractions.
- You can setup a profile for each of your children. Up to four kids are allowed for each membership. Our three-year-old is very excited to have her own profile with activities selected just for her.
- Plus, you can have multiple kids ‘playing’ at once. This will really help when everyone wants to have a go at the same time. It’s also super sweet to watch the older kids help the littlies.
- Finally, it’s made by primary school educators with tons of experience and used in many Australian schools.
Families Magazine tips for maximising ABC Reading Eggs
- First up, check out the ‘Parent User Guide’ located under the ‘bonus material’ tab. It covers everything! I wish I’d found it sooner.
- Then make sure you have your child complete the placement test which will enable ABC Reading Eggs to gauge their current reading skills and tailor their learning journey.
- Take time to sit with your children at least once a week to ensure they are accessing the many fantastic activities the program has to offer. Otherwise, they can get caught up circling back to their favourite parts.
- Use the dashboard to monitor what activities they have been working on. Click on the ‘View full progress report’ button.
- Schedule in regular ABC Reading Eggs time each week to ensure you make the most of your membership.
What does ABC Reading Eggs Cost?
Right now, you can access a 30-day FREE trial! The creators of ABC Reading Eggs are super confident you’ll love the program so they offer a 30‑day money‑back guarantee – cancel at any time. It is billed monthly for ABC Reading Eggs and ABC Mathseeds or billed annually saving you 35%. Here’s what you get with your membership:
- ABC Reading Eggs
- ABC Reading Eggs Junior
- ABC Mathseeds
- Fast Phonics
- ABC Reading Eggspress
- Detailed assessment reports
- 3000 e-books
- 500+ printable worksheets
- Access for up to 4 children
Plus, when you sign up for a 30-day FREE trial, you get access to special deals on a range of ABC Reading Eggs Book Packs. The book packs compliment the online education programs, that are put together by expert educators with over 30 years of experience and are packed with fun activities inside. We also found we could borrow the printed ABC Reading Eggs books from our local library.
How to access ABC Reading Eggs
The colourful and interactive ABC Reading Eggs learning apps are available on iPad, Android and iPhone. See the full list of ABC Reading Eggs apps here.
ABC Reading Eggs: In Summary
Has ABC Reading Eggs taught our child to read? Not quite but she is only four! We’re at the start of her reading journey and of course, we’ve only been using ABC Reading Eggs sporadically for four months. However, progress has been made as she can identify her letters and sound out several sight words. Most importantly, she is enjoying learning and is showing signs of becoming a confident learner.
ABC Reading Eggs is screen time we’re happy for our children to have. Give the 30-day FREE trial a go to see how ABC Reading Eggs can support your child’s journey to becoming a confident reader. Younger kids will be thoroughly entertained by the characters, and older kids will prefer using this method of learning over a pencil and paper.
I think Its a month trial now due to the epidemic that covid the earth.
Its a 2 week trial now. Just go to sign up page
The link to the 4 week trial doesn’t work – has trial ended? Cheers
The link to the 4 week trial doesn’t work. Can you confirm that it’s still current. Cheers
Cool