Christmas Gift- Best Reading Electronic Gadget for 2 yr old? Leapfrog? Vtech?

[TeachingMyToddlers]

I was wandering in a store last month and saw a few of these on the shelf.

What's the best "entry level" electronic reading book gadget for a 2 year old? The kind with the "pen" that you run along the words and it reads them out loud to you. No, this will not replace our parent-child story time but I think it will be a fun addition to our reading program.  I have seen leapfrog, vtech, and others.

I don't really care if it has popular tv/movie character books that go along with it, I would actually prefer it had a lot of choices that weren't in mainstream media (fairy tales etc would be great) we don't do regular tv/movies in our house and I'd prefer not to get started down that path.

It has to be easy to operate, DD has decent fine motor skills but not the best in the world, she's only turning 2 this month. It has to be durable, and it has to be fun. Some phonics specialty add on books would be a huge bonus. Any recommendations?

[AussieMumofOne]

We haven't used the yet as BC is currently too young but I got some great Leapfrog learning books and the computer/reader thing at a market recently. I got 3 books and their matching cartriges and the laptop for $20AUD! Massive bargain. I've played with it and the pen does read out the words as you go along, or it reads at individual phonemes or phonemic blends. It can also spell words and label objects and characters if you point to them. It seems pretty good to me!

[nhockaday]

I got the Tag Jr. for my son last Christmas. I think it is made for ages 2-5 or something. It's really easy to hold and use, and the books are sturdy board books that are age-appropriate. It will read the entire paragraph when pointed at it, but the device is too big to point at a single word unless that's the only word on the page. It also makes sounds and asks questions when pointed anywhere on the page. There are a lot of books that are always changing. They all focus on a subject like colors, counting, abc's rhymes, etc. They have displays at Target and Toys-R-Us if you have those in your area. You can play with it and see if you'd like it.
My son plays with it sometimes. He wasn't as interested in it as I thought he would be, but every kid is different. I actually got it at such a good price last Christmas that I don't care if he doesn't play with it all the time. He likes to push buttons, so he would rather push the off/on button and the volume button than read the books.
The regular Tag is made for older kids and is supposed to pointed at single words. The books are like regular books, so I don't think that would be age-appropriate.

[mtb999]

Tag Jr is is definitely for your son's age group.  I bought one for my DD, who is 19 months.  She likes playing with it but doesn't quite get waiting long enough for the sentences to finish or the extra noises/phrases on each page before touching the pages again.

The Tag Junior books are hard cover - which means they don't get wrecked by little ones easily.

From reading the Leap Frog forums I get the impression that you can use the Tag Junior hand control for the Leap Frog Tag books - but the handset is not programmed to read word by word - so it will read the whole sentence out, unlike the Tag pens.  However it does mean that the number of books your child can use the Tag Junior controller with many more books.

If you have Canadian friends you can get them to send you French Tag junior books! 

[aangeles]

Although the Tag Reader is recommended for 4-8 year olds, I actually got that rather than the Tag Jr. for my daughter for the following reasons:

1. Most of the Tag Junior books are about colors, counting, abc's which she has mastered already and might not find as interesting.

2. As nhockaday mentioned, the Tag Jr. reads the whole page all at once while the Tag reads one word at a time (which reinforces our practice of pointing out the individual words when reading to Ella.)

3. The Tag Reader works on Tag Jr. books but not vice versa, so if we wanted to get her some Tag Jr. books, we can just download the audio into the Tag and it will also read the Tag Jr. books. Whereas if we had gotten the Tag Jr. and she outgrows it, we would have to buy a completely new system for the Tag books.

4. She has decent fine motor skills and has no problem holding the Tag pen (which is actually bigger than the toddler pencils that she often writes with.) I actually think the Tag Jr. pen would be too bulky for her.

5. The Tag Reader has more non-mainstream media choices for books, like Learn to Read Phonics series, Super Speller series, National Geographic books, USA and world maps, etc. The Tag Jr. has mostly books with the popular cartoon characters in them. (I, too, would like to keep the usual cartoon characters out of our house as long as I possibly can.)

6. I can download French and Spanish Tag books into my Tag pen. (The French Tag books were actually the reason I got this system in the first place.)

7. Ella has learned to be very careful with her books and I actually don't have any problem with her tearing or destroying the regular books that the Tag system comes with.

Hope that helps!

[TeachingMyToddlers]

Aangeles-
After reading more about it online last night, I came to the same conclusion you did. A big part was the phonics readers and choice of books, as well as the fact that my daughter already likes leapfrog things so she would initially be more "into" it and I trust the brand. And it is surprisingly more affordable than I thought it would be.

DD does fine with paper books, so I think we are going to go with this and hope for the best. Worst case scenario, it doesn't work out and we tuck it away in the closet for 6 months or so.

Thank you to all for the input and helping me better understand the systems and how some are backwards compatible, the foreign language add ons,etc.

[AussieMumofOne]

Thanks for that summary aangeles, to be honest I got the Tag Reader because that was what was on offer at the time and knew that it would be suitable for BC at some stage (and didn't want to miss a bargain  ) but now I realise that this was the right choice as I prefer the wider available and titles available for this version. Like TeachingMyToddlers says, if he isn't quite ready when I do unpack it for him one day, I can just try again a few months later!

[mtb999]

Aangeles - thank-you for the review of the Tag pen!  I hadn't even thought about Tag Spanish books to expose DD to Spanish sounds/words ... I will have to go and investigate ... Thanks mentioning it   Have you got any recommendations of titles that your DD has enjoyed?  Also I was wondering - is there an option to use the Tag pen to read the whole sentence out instead of touching word-by-word?

Tag Jr can be used for Tag books but it won't read words one by one.  It will read out full sentences due to the way it is programmed.

Also - if you upload French books, you should got to the website as the French books are stored in a differnent file to the English books on Tag jnr, not sure about Tag.


I guess it really depends on your child and how you want to use the technology.  For those people who want to use the pen to read stories to their kids at night in a foreign language then Tag Jr is probably what you want.  If you want to use it to teach words and then Tag is what you want. 

My under 2 year old child will shred pages with the Tag pen stylus even with supervision because she is so strong willed and tries to use her E-bookpen as real pen to draw on the e-book flash cards/books she has.  So the Tag Jnr is better for a child like her (even though she is great with paper books) - at least we've had 3 months of her playing around with the Junior blob/pen and books without having to worry about supervision :-)  Also when the Tag Jnr is on special it's around $30 in Aus .. so it's not too expensive to have to upgrade down the track!

[NadiaD]

Thank you  everybody for detailed reviews.
you got me also interested in Tag  .
Today I was checking LeapFrof website, and found this pack on sale.

http://shop.leapfrog.com/leapfrog/jump/-Tag%22-Learn-to-Read-Gift-Pack/productDetail/Gift-Packs/TAG60311/cat70012?selectedColor=&selectedSize=&navAction=push&navCount=0&categoryNav=false

What do you think? Is it a good deal?
Shipping is free...

[AussieMumofOne]

OK, A bit more research and I have realised that what I got was a leap pad, the older model reading system. Oh well, I can't complain considering it only cost me $20 with 4 books! The sale on their website looks good but I think that picture is a bit misleading as it pictures 12 books but only comes with 6. Otherwise it does look like a great bargain!

[texaslady22]

I was not impressed with the LeapFrog for babies. My son was never interested in it and I found it slowed reading down...he wanted to move on with the story but I felt obligated to push all these random buttons!

[waterdreamer]

I had a Tag pen and my son loved it, they have interactive flashcards too. Sadly my stepdaughter lost it

[loveviolette]

These days, educational electronic toys can both teach and be fun for parents and kids alike. They can light up, make sounds, move around, teach ABCs and 123s, and more for even the tiniest of tots.
Some of the cool gadget ideas;l
1. Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Around the Town Learning Table
2. VTech Touch & Swipe Baby Phone
3. LeapFrog My Own Leaptop
4. Wicked Cool Toys Teddy Ruxpin
5. LeapFrog Mr. Pencil’s Scribble & Write
Get more ideas from here Cool Gadgets Suggestions!

[vvaneesa]

My son is 71/2 years old and he loves the Leapfrog Tag Reading System! The books have sound effects and the pictures are wonderful. You have to program the system into your computer through the Leap Frog website in order for the pen to read the words off the pages. If you decide to get it, they have Ni Hao Kai Lan, The Princess & the Frog and Olivia are quite nice.

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