The Tag Reading System by Leap Frog: A Review

The Tag reading system by Leap Frog is a reading system that basically reads books to your kids. My children received these as Christmas gifts this past year. They are ages 3 and 5. They seemed to like these right away.

The reading system consists of a battery operated pen that reads over words and says them out loud. It comes with one book but there are many additional books for sale. This is a really cool thing for driving across country or for when you are doing other things and not available to read to your non reading children.

Unfortunately I don't find that my children are able to use the reader pen properly at times. If you go to fast (as preschoolers are apt to do) all you will hear is mumbo jumbo like words. I find it confusing to listen too if not down right annoying. They seem to like it in any event.

I am not really crazy of a machine reading books to my children though. It seems a bit unnatural to me. But I do understand maybe it takes some children more to get excited about learning to read. In that case I am all for it! Whatever we can do to get our kids reading is a plus in my book!

The book selection for the Tag reader is pretty wide. They have many classic books and also a wide selection of books based on cartoon series which children of course like if they are exposed to these types of programs.

This system costs around $50 but you can find select packages on sale on some on line retailers websites like www.amazon.com and others. Toys R Us also carries this system

The only thing that really bothers me about this product is the mass marketing of cartoon characters. I really don't find it endearing and am annoyed by these types of marketing techniques. My children on the other hand love the Cars and Dora the Explorer books. Apparently preschoolers are very drawn to famous cartoon characters! I feel it is a marketing ploy that is basically loyal branding to kids. On top of this when you download the program from the website this system is basically tracking you and what you are buying! Pretty sneaky if you ask me! I am not sure why but this leaves a very bad taste in my mouth! I mean now toy companies are stalking our children's reading habits? It is so odd and unsettling to me. It is also ironic they named the product "Tag"!

I am really glad we received this as a gift because we likely would not have purchases it otherwise. I am not sure if we will purchase any more books though.