Does Reading Eggs Work?

If you're familiar with ABC Reading Eggs, you've probably seen our advertisements offering to teach your child to read in 30 days. Is this just marketing hype or does ABC Reading Eggs live up to the promises we make? Does ABC Reading Eggs really work?

Learning to read isn't a natural process. There is a whole body of research called the Science of Reading that has analysed and documented the best approach to teaching children how to read. Thankfully, parents don't have to delve into this research to design a custom learning-to-read plan for their child – ABC Reading Eggs has done it for you!

ABC Reading Eggs introduces children to the five key components of learning to read (as recommended by the Science of Reading researchers) in a systematic and sequenced way that doesn't overwhelm early learners.

Most importantly, ABC Reading Eggs makes learning to read FUN!

We believe that enjoyment is also an essential component of learning to read. Enjoyment motivates kids to stay on task, even if they don't grasp a concept straightaway, and it keeps them coming back to learn more.

Can a child really learn to read in 30 days?

Yes they can! ABC Reading Eggs will have most children reading their first book within a few weeks, even if they don't have any prior reading skills.

When a child first starts their ABC Reading Eggs journey, they're prompted to take the Placement Test so the program can assess their current reading level and knowledge.

The ABC Reading Eggs Placement Test caters for both beginners with no reading skills and children with some existing reading skills. Free trial

If your child has no prior reading skills, they'll begin the program at Lesson 1. At the end of Lesson 9 your child will be given an online book to read.

Based on using ABC Reading Eggs for 15 minutes a day (the recommended daily usage), a child new to reading can be reading their first book in nine days. Of course, each child will learn at their own pace, and some might take longer to progress through to Lesson 9, but it is achievable.

By instructing your child in a combination of phonics, letter recognition, high-frequency sight words and vocabulary building (a blended learning approach), ABC Reading Eggs develops their reading skills quickly and sequentially.

In a recent survey, over 91% of parents reported a noticeable improvement in their child's reading skills (no matter what level they started on) after using ABC Reading Eggs for just a few weeks.

Most importantly, the program makes learning to read easy in a stress-free, no-pressure environment that's fun. Your child won't even realise that they're learning – they'll think they’re just playing a game!

Is your child reading-ready?

As mentioned above, we believe that enjoyment is an essential component of learning to read. It's also important that your child is reading-ready and motivated to learn.

There's no set age at which all children are expected to start learning to read. Crucially, try to avoid comparing your child to other children in their age group and feeling compelled to push them into reading before they’re ready.

Instead, keep an eye out for signs of reading readiness when your child is around the age of four or five. However, it's also quite common for children not to be ready until they're six or seven.

10 signs of reading readiness

Every child develops at their own pace but there are some general indicators that your child might be ready to start learning to read. By observing a combination of behavioural, cognitive and developmental milestones, you'll be able to see the signs that they're ready.

Below are 10 common signs of reading readiness:

1. Interest in books and stories

Your child is enthusiastic about books and enjoys being read to, often asking for stories. They're curious about the words and letters on the page and might even pretend to read on their own.

2. Print awareness

They understand that print carries meaning and show an interest in signs and labels. They can point to words in books, recognising that they are different from the pictures.

3. Interest in writing

They show an interest in writing, even if it's just scribbles or pretending to write letters and words.

4. Letter recognition and alphabet knowledge

Your child recognises and can name some letters of the alphabet and is beginning to understand that letters represent sounds.

5. Phonological and phonemic awareness

They're starting to understand that words are made up of individual sounds and can identify rhyming words.

6. Oral language skills

They can follow simple instructions and can express themselves using complete sentences.

7. Vocabulary

Their vocabulary is growing and they can understand what's happening in stories read aloud to them.

8. Memory skills

They can recall and retell simple stories.

9. Ability to focus

Your child can sit still and focus on a task for a reasonable amount of time.

10. Age

They're aged between four and seven. This is when most children are ready to start learning to read.

If your child isn't yet showing signs that they're ready, be patient and continue developing their pre-reading skills by reading books aloud and having a print-rich environment at home. Remember, the goal is to make learning enjoyable and to create a positive association with books and reading.

ABC Reading Eggs Junior has a huge library of read-aloud books, alphabet games, songs and phonemic awareness activities to help children learn about letters, sounds and words. The game-based learning activities develop a range of pre-reading skills that can be repeated as often as your child wants. Try it for yourself today as part of an ABC Reading Eggs free trial.

The ABC Reading Eggs learn-to-read process

ABC Reading Eggs supports your child's reading journey from ages 2–13 with four online reading programs included in your subscription. Plus, you can add up to four children to your account, making it a flexible and affordable learning package. Free trial

Learning to read is one of the most important skills children can learn. ABC Reading Eggs makes the journey fun, interactive and highly rewarding for ages 2–13.

As well as being incredibly fun, ABC Reading Eggs is educationally sound and based on solid scientific research.

Designed by experienced educators with over 30 years of experience, the multi-award winning program supports your child's learn-to-read journey through online reading games and lessons that are easy to follow and self-paced.

From the very first lesson, children are motivated and excited to learn.

Stepping stones reading lessons

The stepping stones reading lessons are the core of ABC Reading Eggs. Each of the 120 lessons builds on the previous one to develop skills in the five key areas needed to become a good reader: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension.

The lessons are presented in three broad levels with 40 lessons in each level.

• Level 1 – Starting Out for absolute beginners, lessons 1–40

• Level 2 – Beginning to Read for emerging readers, lessons 41–80

• Level 3 – Building Confidence for early readers, lessons 81–120.

Colourful animations, fun characters, songs and rewards keep children motivated to stay on task.

When children start ABC Reading Eggs they can complete a placement quiz to ensure they're starting at the correct reading level, regardless of their age in years. This enables the program to deliver lessons tailored to each child's reading abilities.

Learning concepts are repeated in a variety of ways over multiple lessons to ensure there aren't any skill gaps and to reinforce what children have learned previously.

Learning to read really is a fun journey with ABC Reading Eggs as children complete maps containing 10 lessons each, unlocking rewards as they progress. Free trial

Level 1 – Starting Out (Maps 1 to 4)

Level 1 – Starting Out is aimed at 3–6-year-olds who have little or no reading skills. This is where all children can begin to learn to read. By completing the 40 lessons in the Starting Out level, children will learn their first reading skills. This includes learning the sounds and names of letters, reading their first sight words, such as the, I, and, is and see. They will also learn the essential phonics skills needed to read three letter words such as cat, fan and Sam. Children will then be able to read their first simple books featuring Sam the Ant.

Level 2 – Beginning to Read (Maps 5 to 8)

Level 2 – Beginning to Read builds on skills learned in Level 1 with a focus on short vowel words such as cat, dog, ten, fish and duck and on building reading skills. Children will learn many more high-frequency sight words, build word families and read another 40 books. Some of these books will be nonfiction titles with a focus on building vocabulary.

Level 3 – Building Confidence (Maps 9 to 12)

Level 3 – Building Confidence covers long vowel words such as cake, kite, rain, cook, seat and cute. These new phonic patterns are introduced and reinforced so that children can read them fluently and spell them correctly. There is an increased focus on reading for meaning, comprehension and understanding longer words and sentences. Children read 40 new longer books. Some of these books will be nonfiction titles with a focus on building vocabulary in a variety of key areas.

Multi-layered rewards for progress and achievement

A key part of the success of ABC Reading Eggs is our multi-layered rewards system.

The rewards system fosters a feeling of success in children, encouraging progress and boosting confidence. Children are motivated to spend more time on-task and to continue to make real progress in their reading skills.

• As they complete activities, your child will earn golden eggs that can be redeemed for items to decorate their ABC Reading Eggs house or customise their avatar

• At the completion of a lesson an egg hatches to reveal a surprising new critter that children love

• At the end of each map (10 lessons) children receive a digital certificate of completion.

Multiple learning areas for skills development

In addition to the 120 core lessons, ABC Reading Eggs includes different learning areas within the program to focus on building specific reading and literacy skills through a variety of activities.

Driving Tests

This section of the program assesses reading skills with tests that assess high-frequency sight word knowledge, phonics skills (letters and sounds) and content area vocabulary. Each of the three areas has 15 quizzes, with 20 questions in each quiz. These are mastery quizzes, so a child only moves onto the next quiz after they get all 20 questions correct.

Story Factory

After a child has completed Map 1 (Lesson 10) they can create their very own story books with full-colour illustrations in the Story Factory. The books are saved in their ABC Reading Eggs house and can be printed for you to keep. Each week there is a new Story Factory competition with a prize of 200 golden eggs. The Story Factory is a wonderful way to build a love of both reading and creative writing.

Spelling Skills Bank

The Spelling Skills Bank opens after a child has completed Lesson 40 in ABC Reading Eggs. The Spelling Vault contains 96 carefully graded spelling lessons, each focusing on a 12-word spelling list.

Storylands

Storylands opens after a child has completed Lesson 60 in ABC Reading Eggs. Here they can complete 20 lessons (140 activities) to build their reading, vocabulary and comprehension skills and get rewarded with golden eggs and special items for their house and avatar. They also unlock special features on their map! The Storylands lessons are themed around Clinker Castle, the home of a royal family who are larger than life.

Online library

The ABC Reading Eggs online library includes over 4000 fiction and nonfiction e-books that span a vast range of topics to encourage reading for pleasure. From Lesson 9 onwards, each ABC Reading Eggs lesson ends with reading a book and completing a comprehension quiz.

Children and parents can also explore the hundreds of highly visual books in ABC Reading Eggs Junior to develop oral language and reading readiness skills.

All lower reading level books come with read-aloud audio, allowing early readers to independently listen as they read.

Children can log and review books they've read in their customisable Reading Journal.

Progress reporting

Parents can access detailed reports and track their child's progress. These reports are available at any time in the Family Dashboard and are also emailed at certain milestones.

You'll be able to see what lessons your child has completed, what books they've read, the words and skills they've mastered and any certificates achieved.

Supplementary materials for offline learning

In addition to the online programs, hundreds of activity sheets that correspond to the lessons can be downloaded from the family dashboard.

Use these to supplement their daily screen time with hands-on, offline learning.

A comprehensive learn-to-read program

As you can see, ABC Reading Eggs in itself is a comprehensive learn-to-read program. But wait, there's more!

An ABC Reading Eggs account will actually give you access to four online reading programs:

• ABC Reading Eggs Junior for ages 2–⁠4

• ABC Reading Eggs for ages 3–⁠7

• Fast Phonics for ages 5–⁠10, our dedicated systematic synthetic phonics program

• ABC Reading Eggspress for ages 7–⁠13.

Plus, you'll be able to add up to four children who can access the program on multiple devices at the same time.

This makes for an affordable and flexible learning package for families – there's no need to purchase separate reading programs for more than one child.

Getting the most from your ABC Reading Eggs free trial

With such a vast amount of content and materials available to help your child learn to read, it's important that you get the most out of your ABC Reading Eggs free trial.

We've put together a handy step-by-step guide to help you get started.

Over 20 million families have used our programs and we hope you will too.

ABC Reading Eggs reviews

Many parents have written to us to say how quickly and easily their child (or children) have learned to read. Below you'll find some of our favourite testimonials:

“My son has just started using the ABC Reading Eggs program and I think it is fantastic. He has learned an unbelievable amount in an incredibly short time and I am so happy with the program.”

– Helen

“AMAZING! We continue to be surprised by how quickly and how enthusiastically all of our children are taking to reading, all thanks to ABC Reading Eggs – we are telling everyone we know about it!!”

– Fiona

“Just want to say a HUGE thank you for your fabulous ABC Reading Eggs program. My daughter is four next month and it is simply amazing how quickly she is genuinely learning to read. It is great how easily ABC Reading Eggs teaches children to read. It takes any stress out of the learning process by making it fun. We have just had our second child, and I cannot tell you how great ABC Reading Eggs has been. While I feed the baby, our daughter navigates her way around the ABC Reading Eggs site, completing lessons and (her favourite bit) hatching critters! Thanks again.”

– Anna

“This has been so great for my son in preschool who needed something visual and exciting for learning and remembering his letters. His teacher tested his alphabet today and told me he knew 15. Last time she tested he knew two. I am so pleased and he has only been using the program for three days!”

– Maree

“I've just purchased a 12-month subscription to ABC Reading Eggs for my two children (three and seven). We've been doing the free trial for a week and I am very impressed with the program. They both absolutely love it and I am particularly amazed at how much my 3-year-old has learned in a week. I'm an elementary school teacher and think the program is exceptionally well designed.”

– Sue

“ABC Reading Eggs is incredible! My daughter can't get enough of the activities, she enjoys them so much. In just THREE days she started reading the most basic of words. Thank you so much ABC Reading Eggs.”

– Arthur

“My youngest son has joined up to the ABC Reading Eggs program and I am amazed at how quickly his reading has taken off. It is a fantastic program. Thank you again.”

– Lisa

“I just wanted to let you know how much my children are enjoying your program. I think it's excellent, interactive, fun and has some obviously well-researched activities and teaching principles in play. I am truly amazed at how quickly simple repetition, quirky characters, games, music and Sam the Ant have brought reading alive. Thank you. I have recommended it to all the people I know with children.”

– Diana

“I just want to thank you for such a wonderful program. I discovered ABC Reading Eggs at the beginning of this year and started my daughter on it just before she commenced preschool. She loved it so much that she took one of the books in to school to read to her teacher. Her teacher was amazed. Over a very short period my daughter went from having no reading knowledge other than the alphabet and her name to reading at a Year 2 level. I have shared ABC Reading Eggs with a lot of parents and will continue to do so. Thank you once again!”

– Mel

“Bailey could not read. He loved Sam the Ant and before my eyes he started telling me words and whole sentences. I couldn't believe it, it was great. Bailey was so proud of himself.”

– Eliza

“My children love ABC Reading Eggs! I've seen one reluctant reader grow in confidence and an emergent reader gain fluency. They have fun while learning and constantly ask if they can "play" on ABC Reading Eggs.”

– Steph K.

“I subscribed for a free trial of ABC Reading Eggs for my kids and they absolutely LOVED it. Thank you for this program! It has helped IMMENSELY!”

– Lanna C.

“I just wanted to tell you how wonderful your site is. My son is three and had been asking me to help him learn to read (as he already knew his alphabet). I tried your site and he has progressed at a rapid rate and now can read some sentences. I am very happy I came across ABC Reading Eggs. Well done!”

– Sharon

“I just wanted to congratulate the ABC Reading Eggs team on such a wonderful product. Earlier this year, my 3-year-old daughter was pestering me to teach her to read and I had no idea where to start. After four months, she's now on the fourth map and loving every minute of it. She gets such a sense of satisfaction every time she gets a new critter and I love seeing her eyes light up when she knows that she can read a book by herself. Thank you again! Without ABC Reading Eggs, I'm not sure what I would have done for the next two years before she's allowed to go to school!”

– Rebecca