LeapFrog Tag Reading System – Pink

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.
5 stars

This toy, well I don’t know if I can call it a toy… I think that the best word is learning tool!!!… It reads each word of the book, read a page, or even read the story. Also have some games like find something on the page, colors, etc. My daughter loves it, she plays a lot, I bought some titles and the stories are great. The best of all it’s that they are playing with real books, not with a computer or a game console.

You have to register your Tag with the leapfrog webpage/software to download the stories that you buy to be storage at the tag, this is very easy and the software is very friendly (I use Mac). Be careful, there are a 16MB and 32 MB Tag available (the 32MB has more storage for stories, I return the 16MB and get the 32MB), and the difference in price worth the upgrade. The Leapfrog’s webpage sends you an email with a report of the advances of the reading of you child, tells you how many time spend your child using the tag and they get rewards for the stories they read.

To be honest, this is the best “toy” I’ve ever buy… I fully recommended it. It’s worth every cent. I also bought the Junior Tag for my little daughter and it’s also amazing, she’s almost two, and plays a lot with it.

I also recommend you to buy the case… it helps to have the Tag and the books in the same place and it very useful if you take this “toy” out of the house.

5 stars

This was a Christmas gift for my 5 year old, and she loves it. My 2 year old was caught playing with it a little bit ago, and doing quite well. I was concerned about how easy it would be for my 5 year old to use it. She’s picked it up like a pro in the span of 2 days. She even figured out if she pushes the button on the side that she can play the books without having them in front of her. So she’ll hold the pen up to her ear like a phone and listen to the stories. *rofl*

I loaded the book that came with it, and three others she got, on Christmas day with no problems. I really like the program that LeapFrog has made for this. It makes adding and removing books SUPER easy. So far my daughter has gotten one reward from the the Ni-Hao Ki-Lan book. It brought up a page to print with a certificate and a “coin” that corresponds with the book. To say the least she’s THRILLED by it. I would like to know from plugging it in what was completed to earn it (though I’ve not fully poked around on it, so it might tell me in the parent section).

I will be picking up the Tag Junior reader for my 2 year old in the near future because I don’t need WWIII in my house. That and I just can’t argue with children who want to learn and read. 😉
5 stars