Reading Eggs Review: Is It Worth It?

Reading Eggs is worth it if you want one long-running set path, with reading and math together, for several children. A different app fits better if you want to choose what your child practices. Its Reading & Math plan is $13.99 a month or $99.99 a year for up to four children, with a 30-day free trial. The App Store also sells reading only for $9.99 a month or $69.99 a year, and the homeschool plan, Homeschool Max, is $41.90 a month or $299 a year. Reading Eggs is a bundle of separate reading and math programs, and the program called Reading Eggs runs from pre-K through second grade.

How we compared them: We make a reading app ourselves, Wonster Words, so we know what to look for in one. We checked each price and feature on the company’s own site, help center, or app-store listing, and we have used every app on this page.

In our use, Reading Eggs started a child with a placement test, and we found no way to choose a skill. Its narration has a strong Australian accent, and its American accent setting changes only part of it. Wonster Words lets you choose the skill your child works on, for $59.99 a year for up to four children.

How much does Reading Eggs cost?

Reading Eggs costs $13.99 a month or $99.99 a year for its Reading & Math plan, which covers up to four children, and it sells two other plans. Which plans you see depends on where you sign up, and the website’s are on Reading Eggs’ pricing page.

Reading Eggs plan	Price	What it covers	Where you buy it
Reading & Math	$13.99 a month or $99.99 a year	Every reading program plus Mathseeds, for up to 4 children	The website, and the App Store as Reading Eggs+Mathseeds
Reading only	$9.99 a month or $69.99 a year	Reading only	The App Store
Homeschool Max	$41.90 a month or $299 a year	Reading & Math plus assignment scheduling and skill-mastery tracking, for up to 4 children	The website

The free trial is 30 days on the website’s monthly Reading & Math plan, and it needs a card to start. Reading Eggs’ help center says the trial renews unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends. On the website, it renews into Reading & Math at $13.99 a month. A website trial is canceled in a web browser under My Account, not in the app, and an App Store or Google Play sign-up in that store.

Website and Google Play purchases carry a 30-day money-back guarantee. An App Store refund goes through Apple. Reading Eggs sells workbooks separately on its site.

What does Reading Eggs include, and how does it teach?

Reading Eggs is a bundle of five programs, each for a different stage, with a placement test that decides where your child starts. The programs are:

• Reading Eggs Junior, the youngest program.
• Reading Eggs, the core program, for pre-K through second grade.
• Fast Phonics, a second phonics program for kindergarten through second grade, which Reading Eggs also calls “suitable for older students with core learning gaps.”
• Reading Eggspress, for grades 2–7, teaching comprehension, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary.
• Mathseeds, its math program.

Reading Eggs advises against running its two phonics programs at once, because they “introduce phonemes in a different order.” Its App Store listing describes a library of “over 4,000 e-books,” and parents get a progress dashboard and an accent setting with American, British, and Australian English.

In our use, Reading Eggs runs as a set path that the program steers. The placement test was hard to redo once the child was placed, the progress map does not label what each stage teaches, and we found no way to skip ahead or to choose a skill. In the sessions we played, practice ran one way: the app says a sound and the child picks the letter. Changing the level moved play from Reading Eggs into Fast Phonics, which has different games, so the bundle plays as separate programs.

In our use, the narration has a strong Australian accent, most noticeable on r-controlled vowels such as ar and or. With the American setting on, the r-controlled games used American sounds but the videos stayed Australian. If your child is learning American English sounds, listen to a lesson during the trial.

What do parents say about Reading Eggs?

Reading Eggs is rated 4.7 stars from about 7,500 ratings on the US App Store, as of November 2026. Recent App Store reviews praise how much children enjoy it and the reading progress parents see, including in homeschool families. Their most common complaint by far is the app’s sound cutting out in the middle of a lesson, then billing and other bugs.

Use the 30-day trial to check three things: that the sound plays through a whole lesson on the device your child will use, that the placement test put your child at the level they read at, and that the narration’s accent suits the sounds your child is learning.

Does Reading Eggs work, and how much time a day?

Reading Eggs suggests 15 minutes a day, and its evidence for the program is one classroom comparison and two studies its owner commissioned. Its claim that “93% of children improve 1 reading level in just 6 weeks” comes from a 2017 University of South Carolina dissertation by Lowery. Its claim to have “met the rigorous Level III evidence certification under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)” rests on two studies its owner, 3P Learning, commissioned from LearnPlatform by Instructure.

Reading Eggs study	Children	Design	What it found
Lowery, 2017	31 second graders in one South Carolina school: one class of 15 used Reading Eggs, one of 16 did not	Two classes, not randomly assigned, over 6 weeks	14 of the 15 users (93%) moved up a Fountas & Pinnell reading level
LearnPlatform, 2021–22	1,756 children in kindergarten–grade 2, in one South Carolina district	Heavier users against lighter users, on NWEA MAP reading scores	Heavier use went with higher scores in kindergarten and grade 1; the grade 2 result was not significant
LearnPlatform, 2023–24	952 children in kindergarten–grade 2, in one Indiana district	Heavier users against lighter users, on Amira Reading Mastery scores	The same pattern: higher scores in kindergarten and grade 1, and no significant result in grade 2

Neither LearnPlatform study had a group of children who did not use Reading Eggs, so the design shows an association, which is what ESSA’s Level III, “Promising Evidence,” asks for. We found no report on Reading Eggs from the What Works Clearinghouse, the US Department of Education’s review of education research.

The phonics method Reading Eggs uses is well supported. The National Reading Panel found systematic phonics instruction significantly more effective than instruction that teaches little or no phonics, a finding about the method rather than this program. A review of educational app studies by Kim, Gilbert, Yu, and Gale (2021) found the largest effects for preschoolers and on constrained skills such as letter sounds. Expect the first gains from any reading app there.

What age is Reading Eggs for?

Reading Eggs covers ages 2–13 across its programs, and the program called Reading Eggs runs from pre-K through second grade, ages 3–7 in its App Store description. Its placement test, rather than your child’s age, sets where your child starts. On Reading & Math, a child who finishes second grade moves on to Reading Eggspress in the same subscription, and siblings of different ages share the plan, which covers up to four children.

Is Reading Eggs enough for homeschool?

Reading Eggs is a useful practice tool in a homeschool reading plan, and it is not enough on its own. Its homeschool page calls it “a complete curriculum-aligned reading, phonics, and math program,” “aligned to each state’s curriculum standards, including Common Core State Standards,” and “an approved Education Savings Account (ESA) vendor in a growing number of states.” Being aligned to standards describes what a program covers, not whether a child can learn to read from it alone.

No study Reading Eggs cites tested it as a child’s only reading instruction. Each one followed children using it at school, where they also had their teachers’ reading lessons. A homeschool reading curriculum has the parent teach each skill directly, and Reading Eggs gives the child daily practice and a path between those lessons. Our guide to choosing an app, a workbook, or a curriculum compares the curricula and printed programs that do the teaching.

Homeschool Max is the plan Reading Eggs sells for homeschooling, at $41.90 a month or $299 a year for up to four children. Reading Eggs describes it as “Everything in Reading & Math, plus full control over how your child moves through the program,” and lists assignment scheduling, real-time tracking of skill mastery, a Teacher Toolkit, and Read Aloud Fluency. Without those planning tools, Reading & Math is $99.99 a year, and reading only is $69.99 a year in the App Store.

Reading Eggs vs. ABCmouse, HOMER, and Hooked on Phonics

Parents weighing Reading Eggs also look at ABCmouse, HOMER, and Hooked on Phonics.

Reading Eggs vs. ABCmouse: focus or breadth

Reading Eggs vs. ABCmouse is a choice between focus and breadth. ABCmouse is a broad early-learning curriculum for ages 2–8, with reading as one subject among several, at $14.99 a month or $59.99 a year. In our use, much of ABCmouse’s hold on a child comes from reward play such as avatar dress-up, room decoration, and pet play. ABCmouse suits a family that wants one subscription across many subjects for a preschooler; Reading Eggs suits one whose goal is reading. Our guide to ABCmouse alternatives sets ABCmouse against five other apps.

Reading Eggs vs. HOMER: a set path or a broad program

Reading Eggs vs. HOMER is a set path through separate programs against one early-learning program for reading, math, and more. HOMER, owned by Begin, describes “1,000+ activities tailored to every child’s age, interest, and level,” for kids 2–6 on Begin’s HOMER page and 2–8 in its App Store listing. It costs $12.99 a month or $79.99 a year, with a 30-day free trial on the web (7 days in the app). In our use, HOMER is broad, with cute characters and a clean interface, and more educational than ABCmouse.

Take care over where you sign up for HOMER. In our use, an account made on Begin’s website gave us no way to sign in from the mobile app, which offered only to subscribe again. A HOMER sign-up in the iPhone app pays through a website by Apple Pay, so it is canceled with Begin rather than in iPhone Settings. Though the app’s content may suit a child, we hesitate to recommend HOMER at present, due to the sign-in issues. Our HOMER review covers it in full.

Reading Eggs vs. Hooked on Phonics: a bundle or one path

Reading Eggs vs. Hooked on Phonics is a bundle of programs against one path with printed workbooks, and our Hooked on Phonics review compares the two. If neither fits because you want to choose the phonics skill your child practices, Wonster Words does that, and it leads the alternatives below.

Alternatives to Reading Eggs, including cheaper ones

The right alternative to Reading Eggs depends on why you are looking.

• You want to choose what your child practices, or hear each sound in a word said aloud: Wonster Words. You open a section by topic, such as Letter Sound, Blend Phonics, or Sight Words, and as a word comes together, your child hears each sound on its own. It is $59.99 a year for up to four children, against $99.99 for Reading Eggs’ Reading & Math, or $69.99 for reading only in the App Store.
• You want a set path with printed materials: Hooked on Phonics, whose box plans ship a workbook and storybooks each month. See whether Hooked on Phonics is worth it.
• You want it free: Khan Academy Kids, and the other options in our guide to free phonics apps and resources.
• You want broad early learning, not reading alone: ABCmouse.

For the wider field, our comparison of phonics apps sets the apps against each other, and our guide to choosing a reading app works through the questions to ask of any of them.

• Reading Eggs: the 2–13 age range is the bundle’s, and the reading-only plan is sold in the App Store only.
• HOMER: the 30-day trial is for sign-ups on the web, and the app’s is 7 days.
• Hooked on Phonics: the 7-day trial is on the app. The box plans have no trial and carry a 30-day money-back guarantee instead.
• ABCmouse: the 30-day trial is on the monthly plan, for sign-ups on its website.

Is Reading Eggs right for a struggling reader?

Reading Eggs can give a struggling reader daily practice on a set path, and a child who is well behind needs direct teaching as well. Reading Eggs describes Fast Phonics as “suitable for older students with core learning gaps in their reading knowledge.” The Institute of Education Sciences practice guide on foundational reading skills recommends teaching children to link the sounds in speech to letters, to decode words, and to read connected text every day. An app supplies the practice on each. Our guide to getting help for a struggling reader goes through the options, and the signs of dyslexia lists what to watch for.

Whichever program you choose, judge it away from the screen. When your child sounds out a word they have never practiced, or reads a short book with less help than last month, the subscription is doing its job.