PRODUCT REVIEW: 3P Learning’s Reading Eggs

Zohra Benotmane, acting assistant headteacher at Snowsfields Primary School in London, reviews 3P Learning’s Reading Eggs, an online digital resource which has made a significant impact on her pupils’ abilities in reading and comprehension.  

We started using Reading Eggs in 2012 for our Y1 and year 2 classes. It takes the form of a unique online world where children learn to read and are encouraged to practice and improve their reading strategies and spelling, while mastering key vocabulary along the way.  

Featuring colourful visuals and animations, music, sound effects and destinations such as a shop, a bank and a cafe, the Reading Eggs world engages children very quickly.  Each pupil creates their own ‘Eggsplorer’ – an avatar – whose successful participation in lessons and activities wins them ‘eggs’ which hatch ‘critters’, all of which earn points for the pupil to  spend at the online shop and use to dress their avatars and furnish their houses. 

ABOVE: Reading Eggs covers core literacy skills including spelling, composition and comprehension

The resource’s link to phonics was especially appealing for us. Lessons begin with single letters sounds and progress to blending whole words and building sentences. The quiz at the end of each lesson is also useful in helping teaching staff to assess pupil progress.

It is a linearly progressive resource, personalised for each learner, with each child starting at a point determined by a placement test, or by their teacher. The My Lessons area is a core part of Reading Eggs, allowing pupils to progress through 120 lessons. Once they have mastered reading the children are supported as they make the transition to more complex comprehension and learn to understand creative writing techniques and how to apply reading strategies.

It has definitely helped our emerging readers to be more confident. Our developing readers in KS2 move on to Reading Eggspress, which has a more ‘grown-up’ looking interface and provides a greater focus on comprehension. At this stage, all lessons end with a quiz and scores are fed back to the teacher centre. There is also a library of over 2,000 eBook titles, both fiction and non-fiction. Children are encouraged to review and rate their chosen books, saving their favourites to a personal bookshelf. The resource is also capable of assessing a pupil’s preferences to help guide their future reading choices. 

Finally there is the ‘Stadium and Quote’ quest where pupils can practise spelling, grammar and vocabulary skills with other students in a live race against the clock. Teachers can monitor students individually – checking for example how many games they have played, their vocabulary and the last three books they have read. They can also set particular books or lessons to move a pupil on to a more difficult stage and are also supplied with suggested classroom and homework activities. 

ABOVE: 3P Learning’s Reading Eggs is designed to help children aged 4-11 learn to read by making online lessons fun

It’s proved very useful in helping our children to develop their inferential reading skills and therefore to read more strategically, while increasing their confidence in answering higher order thinking questions.

Overall we’ve been very pleased that the resource has heightened the focus on reading in our school and has helped all our pupils to become more fluent and confident readers.

Reading Eggs (KS1) and Reading Eggspress (KS2) (www.3plearning.com/reading eggs/) are linked digital resources from 3P Learning which help children aged 4-11 learn to read and develop a love of reading, using a host of fun, online lessons, a library of 2,000 eBooks and a range of engaging and motivational activities. Covering core literacy skills including spelling, composition and comprehension, the resources immerse learners in an interactive ‘world’, as they develop their reading and comprehension skills and eventually progress onto reading whole books.

www.3plearning.com