Mayhem University Prep

My Reading Eggs Review

I'm happy with reading eggs.  I just renewed for my second year.  Some of the games in reading eggs go very fast, maybe one in every twenty lessons is.  *I actually think* I know what that's about, visual discrimination or visual processing.  My son is now good at the dreaded timed "golden eggs".  Eh, some parts are more fun than others and some parts are kind of hard, but not too hard.

I would have probably bought it and left it up to him to do or not do, get past the hard parts or not and would have let the subscription expire unused, wasted, after one of the hard parts...but at that time I read a parenting forum post that said, "if your child is sorking very hard to learn something you should help them out.   So I sat with him and went through all the lessons.  I said, "you do a board, and I'll do a  board".  If he were in a classroom he wouldn't be answering every question, so he'll probably get *something* from watching me do the hard ones.  Often after seeing how the hard ones were done he would want to do a hard one.

Eventually I wasn't taking turns anymore.  I contacted reading eggs and they reset his board.  He worked his way through all the lessons.  I did need to stand there and watch him for support for the difficult boards. 

The timed parts I actually did help him by standing over him and coaching him.  He would do obvious things like get one wrong then pout for a minute, costing time, or, visually tally and comment how many eggs he had done and how many were left *during* the timed part.  He would gloat and make songs about beating the timer in between answers.  I explained how each of these things were costing him time.  After that I would just tell him the next answer when ever he got  *hung up* like that and then he would remember to keep going.  Eventually he would remind himself, but he still needed me to stand there *because* it was "the hard part".  If that lesson was worth teaching it was an unexpected side effect of the program. 

The effort i put into it made the program work for us.  I didn't make him do any lesson he didn't want to do.  If he got stuck on a lesson that he didn't want to try I would leave it for later at night and I would say, "You don't have to go to bed but you can go do that reading egg lesson."

I'm not trying to sell anyone on reading eggs.  I haven't used the similar programs Headsprout, ABC Mouse, or More Starfall (paid).  I'm just passing on my advice on how to use the program, not waste your money, not frusterate anybody, and get results.  I told you how we got the most out of the program with the least frusteration and no buyers remorse because the taking turns technique would work as well with any one you buy.