LeapFrog® Tag Reading System (16 MB)
by LeapFrog
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List Price: Category: Toy See more product details |
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Toys and Games Reviews of LeapFrog® Tag Reading System (16 MB)
Customer Review: Revolutionary toy - slowly became my kid's favorite
Summary: 5 Stars
I first bought it when my daughter was only 3 years old. She played with it once every few days, and got bored of it quickly each time within a few minutes. She had no patient to wait for the spoken words to complete, and would rather scratch the book with the pen, making incoherent sounds in the process. The book that came with the pen was a bit too overwhelming for her as it contains games about rhymes and phonics, which are at a 5 year old level.
Then over time, my daughter came back to it more and more, especially with the additional 3 books I bought for her. She started out learning about the sound each picture makes, then the sound each word makes, and then (half a year later) how to play games. The games themselves have 3 levels, which are appropriate for kids of different ages. At 4 year old now, my daughter could play level 2 by herself, and needed a lot of help from me for level 3.
So if your kid doesn't like it initially, just give it time.
My daughter learned many new words from the book. She also memorized a lot of phrases from the pen. She has a knack of saying what the pen gonna say, then point the pen and made it say the same thing.
The concept of this book is nothing short of a revolution. What it gives beyond a normal book is the level of interactivity. The level of interactivity can be very complex, much like the way human interact with one another. For example, the book could ask the kid to find 4 pictures of the Flounder fish. She clicks on the first one, it confirms by counting out loud "one", then she clicks on the second and it confirms "two", ... and after the last one it would say "good job". That's not just teaching the kid how to count, but also interactive communication. The constant feedback keeps the kids motivated in exploring and learning.
The tag system also helps me (the parent) interacting with my kid more often. My daughter constantly needs help with the games, and constantly tells me about the new things she discovered in the book. Every time I bought her a new tag book, she would choose it as our bedtime story book, for several nights in a row. If you want some me-time, this ain't the product to buy.
I also bought for my daughter the Leapfrog Leapster hand-held video console. While the Leapster is very interactive by itself, my daughter doesn't like it as much. The book has much better graphics that the tiny low-resolution screen on the Leapster can't compare. The physical touch and feel of the book pages is also much more intuitive for kids.
Other info for parents:
The tip of the Tag pen is as sharp as a normal pen, so don't give it to kids below 3 year old, in case they poke their eyes out.
The books are quite expensive compared to normal books, but what you're paying is also the voices, sound effects and games too.
The Tag pen shuts down when not used for 5 minutes by itself to save battery, as kids often forget to turn it off. The two AAA batteries do last a reasonable amount time, although I use rechargeable batteries anyways since I already have them.
You must have internet connection and USB port on your computer to be able to download voices for new books. The software fine for both Windows XP 32-bits and Windows 7 64-bits. Although I can't store too many stories into the pen, it's rather easy to transfer them in and out using the computer software.
As far as durability, it's been working fine. The painted symbols on some buttons are rubbing off.
Customer Review: SO FUN THEY DON'T EVEN THINK OF IT AS LEARNING!
Summary: 5 Stars
WORTH EVERY PENNY!
This is such a wonderful product. I was very skeptical when I saw the advertisements for this product. I thought that it was kind of silly to have a pen that takes the place of a parent and reads to your child. However, this system goes way beyond simply reading to your child. It is fun and interactive. Everything that you point to makes a sound. This truly is great for the 4-7 year old range.
NOT FOR CHILDREN UNDER 4!
I would not use this product for a child under 4. It would be frustrating for a child younger than 4. The child has to be able to understand the concepts of how to make the tag reader work. You must point at something and then lift the pen. It does not function if you simply just hold it down continuously. Also, the pages are not durable enough to withstand the under-4-years of age group of children.
BUY IT FROM SOMEWHERE THAT HAS AN EXCELLENT RETURN POLICY!
I highly recommend purchasing this item from a store that you can easily return it too if it doesn't function correctly. Keep the box and the receipt. I have had no difficulty with our reader. I just think that the parents out there should save themselves a few headaches when purchasing electronics. The cardinal rule of electronics- if you can't return it, murphy's law is that it won't work!
CONNECTING IS EASY!
Some reviews state that they have had difficulty connecting the reader to the leapfrog site to download audio. I think that Leapfrog has corrected most of these problems. I have had no difficulty. It is a very easy process. I really enjoy that you can hook up the tag reading system at any time and track the progress your child is making. It allows you to see their strengths and weaknesses.
MY ONE GRIPE (yes ONLY one!).
My one gripe is that the tag reading system only holds the audio for 5-6 stories at a time. Memory is so cheap, I don't understand why Leapfrog skimped here. I will say that it isn't a huge issue. It just motivates me as the parent to check my child's previous progress while I load new audio for other books.
THIS PRODUCT IS NOT BORING!
Children are entertained for quite a bit longer than with just traditional books or even parent storytime! Of course, I am an active participant with my child. I am right there whenever questions arise. I believe that a child may become bored or frustrated if they don't understand something and there isn't anyone available to help.
BOTTOM LINE:
Invest in this product and some of the stories! Well worth the money.
NOTE:
I know that I wrote such a glowing product review that I think it is best to reveal that I have no bias. I am not affliated with Leapfrog or any store that even sells this product. I am a stay-at-home mom. I have tested every book that we have for this system. I even enjoyed playing with this system!
Customer Review: A great educational toy for the beginning reader
Summary: 5 Stars
At first glance, I didn't care for Tag. I thought it just reads the words off the book like our old books with cassette did when we were kids. If it reads each word, it probably does it in a boring, monotonous tone.
Then, my niece and nephew get Tag for their birthday, and she shares one with a child in the waiting room at the doctor's office -- plenty of exposure to get her excited about Tag. I thought, what the heck, let's try it.
It is worlds apart from what I expected. Yes, it reads the book, but not in the boring, monotonous tone I expected. It reads in bright, vibrant voices, supplemented with music and sound effects. The child can have the Tag pen read the entire story at once, or it can read the book page by page, or it can read it word by word (in those same, lively voices).
Not only that, my daughter can play word games or answer questions about the story by touching the pen to the star on the page. Some games have varying difficulty levels denoted by the number of stars on the icon.
This is so much better than my daughter's My First Leappad, which required her to hook the book onto the bulky plastic board and insert a cartridge. This requires only the pen and the books, which take up much less room and make it a great travel toy.
It takes a few minutes to install the software, but it is worth it. After that, just connect the Tag to the computer to download the audio for the books you buy. It can only hold 5 books at a time, which is its downfall. Wish it could hold more or maybe even have a memory card slot.
As the children read and play games, they can earn rewards on the computer. I am able to check my daughter's progress online and see how much she is playing, which books she spends the most time on and what questions she is answering correctly.
This is a great investment in my child's learning. She is 5 years old and a beginning reader. I don't know how long this toy will last. Once she is a strong reader, I suspect this toy will quickly become boring, so it probably won't have the lifespan that Leapster had. I am estimating about a year, but I will come back to update either way.
In order to make this toy exciting and worthwhile, I need to buy lots of books. Considering the selection, the quality can be very good. If you are not up to buying a Tag library, this toy may not be the right toy for your kids.
Customer Review: Good fun, but willit teach your kids to read?
Summary: 4 Stars
We did a full, in-depth review of the Tag on our blog at [...]. Here's an excerpt:
We spent quite a bit of time watching our two boys use this and had some discussions with them about the system as well. Overall the kids really liked it. We liked it too. It's neat, it's well designed, it's cool, and quite frankly, it's fun. But the key question for us was, will this teach your kids to read? Probably not. As great as this product is, it's more about making books enjoyable and about listening comprehension. There's no doubt that both of these are really good things. Anything that gets a kid to pick up a physical book and spend time with it these days is a good thing. However, if you're looking for a system to help your child learn to read, this might not be it. The way we see this working best as a learning tool is if parents actively engage with their kids while they're using this system. When kids are unguided with the Tag, I think they're going to default to listening and game mode, and like I said before, nothing wrong with that. But for real learning, turning off the "read it to me" feature is probably best. And keeping it off most likely requires the aid of mom or dad. With the "read to me" feature off, struggling or even advanced readers can use the reader only to help them with words they are having difficulty with. I think that goes a long way to helping kids learn to read.
And on a separate note, systems like the Tag are great for keeping kids entertained and engaged with books. But, I really believe that as parents, we need to see them and understand them as a good addition to but not a substitute for personal, snuggle-up, reading time. Well, that's my two-cents anyway.
Overall we give the LeapFrog Tag Reading System 4 out of 5 for great design, incredible technology and innovation, entertainment value, and sheer enjoyment. The storage capacity and battery-life both present some technical issues that could have easily been resolved in design and really hinder the overall score of this product. In addition, we'd like to have seen a bit more work done on creating incentives for the kids to read more on their own. That said, this is another rock-solid product from LeapFrog.
Customer Review: Tag Reader
Summary: 5 Stars
I just ordered this product for my two-year-old. I have already set it up and tested it so that it will be ready to go when I give it to him Christmas morning. This item is listed for children 3 and up, but I do not plan to allow him to use this unsupervised for quite some time, and he has been able to hold pencils and crayons since he was 13 months, so I did not feel the shape of the Tag JR was a plus. Also, this system is backwards compatible to the Tag JR books, so you have access to both full libraries - not so with Tag JR. FYI, though, the Tag JR books only read a whole page at a time rather than word-by-word. This is built-in to the books themselves, so it is true no matter which reader you have. As far as educational value, I think it varies by book. Probably not as much solid educational value in following Diego underwater as there is in playing phonics games... The set up is easy, but makes sure you do it on a system that will support the requirements. My first try was on a NetBook, and the screen resolution was too low to see everything I needed. Once I loaded everything in on my desktop, it worked beautifully. Don't bother with the carrying case they sell specifically for this. It is much cheaper to get a cheap laptop case on clearance or online. If you are worried about protecting the pen, get an extra pencil case for it. Also, I purchased all of my items, Tag reader, 2 Tag books, 2 Tag JR books, and a laptop case, on Amazon.com for the same price the Tag alone would have cost me at a big box retailer.
01/03/2011 UPDATE
Now that my little man has had this for several days, I can give some additional insight on his interaction with the Tag Reader. He likes to jab the pen at the pages. It isn't really a big deal, but he loses his patience if it doesn't start "reading" right away. So , I have found that if we are snuggled together, I hold the pen and the book, and he points to what he wants. Fine with me, more time to snuggle up! Just FYI, either the Tag or Tag JR should be used with adult supervision and interaction.