Features:

  • The complete learn-to-read-and-write solution—sounds out words, guides letter strokes and helps build comprehension! See the details of your child’s play and learning with the LeapFrog Learning Path. Plus, receive tips from educators!
  • Includes LeapReader reading and writing system, Sampler Activity Book, Learning Paper Writing Sheet, USB Cable, and Quick Start Guide.
  • Touch pages or words to hear them read aloud, sound out words, and play games that build vocabulary and comprehension at every reading stage. Get stroke-by-stroke guidance—trace letters, numbers, words and more on special paper for mess-free writing.
  • Foster listening and comprehension skills with downloadable audio books, music albums and more! Lively character voices, fun sound effects and activities help strengthen comprehension and school readiness skills.
  • Explore 150+ interactive books and writing activities, audio books, music and more every reading level. Enjoy uninterrupted play! LeapReader is USB rechargeable—no batteries required. Pentium 4 or equivalent (2 GHz processor or faster recommended), Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 operating system with latest service pack
Another great product from leapfrog

Another great product from leapfrog. Got this for my four year old for Christmas. Easy setup right out of the box. I would have it programmed and ready to go if it's a gift though. Right now my son has been using to read and when he's finished he does the activities in the book. One of my favorite features are the sight words in some of the leapfrog books. He's really picking up on them! Also purchased the writing book since this is where he struggles the most. I like that he has to hold it like a pencil, and it guides him in making each letter step by step. Also, it forces him to listen to the directions and take it slow. The only negative I've found is that if he doesn't press down hard enough it's not recognizing what he's doing and can cause some frustration. I'm sure he will get better at it. Overall, I would definitly reccomend this and purchase again.

Love this! I have 2!

I have two of these one for P each child. I cannot reccoment them enough! Im pretty sure this is why my daughter knows how to read at 4! My only complain is the books can be expensive and hard to find, however I went on my local buy/sell/trade group and bought a whole stack for $20. If this is your first pen I would buy the set that comes with 10 books it’s a really good deal. We already had the books this was just a second pen for my youngest. Also great for in the car because it takes headphones! Love love love these pens!

What a great learning tool and alternative to screen time!!! Please don't discontinue this, LeapFrog!

Both my 5.5 year old and 2 year old love this! It's great they are not on any digital devices looking at a screen swiping away. This is actually getting both of them very interested in reading and books in general. I couldn't be happier! I really wish they weren't discontinuing this... I wanted to get more books to go with this. Hope they will come out with a similar or better reading assisting toy because all of my friends that saw what my children were reading with they were all amazed by it and said that they are getting one for their children!

Holds all of our books. At least 14

We had the old tag reader, the 16 GB. And we have over 15 books and a map and we ran out of room on the old pen. I had to moved books to make room for new books that we purchased. My son was upset because he wanted to read all of them and didn't understand memory storage and all of that. He is only 4, I will give him a few years before he understands all of that. Anyhow, I got this from amazon when it was on sale. It was cheaper than target. I love it. I loaded everything we have on it, and I am sure more will fit. He likes the songs too. I can't figure out where to download new songs though. I think this is better than the electronic products that are like iPads. I think kids need to feel a book in their hands and turn the pages and such, this is why I love the tag reader. The writing is not fabulous in my eyes. The special paper is pressure writing. So i could write with my fingernail. I wish it would write, then disappear in ten minutes and be Able to use the page over and over, rather than it being a one time use. We did not buy the writing page, we got one page free in the package with the pen, but I am not rushing out to buy more paper, because it is a one time use. I have better apps for this on my iPad, that shows the kids how to draw the letter, and they can do it over and over again.

5 year old thinks it's cool because big sister has one

I bought two of these. One for my 3 year old an done for my 1.5 year old. My 3 year old loves hers and my 1.5 year old thinks it's cool because big sister has one, but doesn't really grasp how to use it yet. I am still glad I purchased this instead of the one designed for the younger kiddos because this seems like it will last much longer in terms of the kids interest and ability levels. Something to know - you must connect this device to the computer an download the content for each book you use it with. This makes it a bit difficult to purchase new books on trips, but if you have a laptop along, no biggie! Some of the books are quite pricey, it seems like there is some rebranding going on, and its hard to find the LeapReader books sometimes.

Great fun with learning!

Great for preschoolers! I bought this for my 4yo daughter at Xmas, and she has really enjoyed it. The books are so cute and entertaining. I love how the pen can be used in so many different ways: telling the story, reading aloud one word at a time, interacting with the pictures, playing games in the books, and even practice writing. And while this LeapReader product is definitely more geared towards preschool-age, it has been a big hit with my toddler as well. We have started a little routine of giving a new LeapReader book as a big reward for something, and both my kids get so excited when another book is added to the collection. Highly recommend

Great for kids learning to read and write

Product arrived on time. I bought a few of the LeapReader books but needed the pen for it. My 2 year old and 4 year old kids love it! My 4 year old is learning to write and read, so it's great practice. My 2 year old just enjoys pointing at the words and pictures. Not sure he completely gets it, but I'm sure he will enjoy it when he is older!

Best Purchase This Year!

I bought this for my 6 year old daughter, so far she loves it. We had a fellow homeschooling friend recommend this to us because my daughter has dyslexia. She has had trouble learning her letter sounds. We just started with this and so far she loves it and so do I. I look forward to getting more books and paper to go with it. I love how this device has audio books as well. I am also loving the fact it can be hooked up to head phones. We have not done that yet, but I plan on it when we travel in the car! This is a great learning tool! Best purchase this year by far!

Can cause some frustration for parents, but that is survivable and it's GREAT for kids

The reviews are a bit mixed and I think that's understandable because there are times it's hard to get the device to do what you want. But it *is* possible to do what it advertises and it's really fantastic when it works, and once you have it configured it works fabulously well and your child is basically never forced to confront any of the frustration from the platform, so I won't deduct any stars for that. I'll try to break it down but will start by just saying that my 5-year-old daughter has used this for a little over a year and she LOVES it. The books have very small dot patterns embedded throughout the images on all the pages. The pen is "loaded" with data for various books and when it knows what book it's looking at, it knows what the dot pattern for that book means and it reads, from the page, whatever it's instructed to do. This might be: read the story, read a word the child taps the pen on, play a game (e.g. identify something of a color, find an emotion, find an object, do some math). There is really a *lot* of interactivity with the books through the story and games that you get with this platform. But if you don't have the book on the pen, the pen will tell the child to ask a parent to update the pen with the book. This is where it gets challenging because the software just doesn't work very well. I use it with Windows and sometimes the device isn't recognized by Windows, or the LeapFrog software can't seem to talk with the pen, or it's hard to navigate through the LeapFrog software to find the books to load onto the pen. This is (thankfully) rare, though, and the pen has reasonable capacity to store a lot of books (I have 10-20 on mine or so) and once it's set, it's ready to interact with your whole library. I think all of the frustration with this platform is in this process. Three other things I'll mention. 1) As other reviewers have said, there are some backward compatibility issues, I guess. I haven't encountered this. I originally got an older generation pen from a used kid stuff sale before I bought one of these pens (eventually I got too many books for that very-old pen to store). I fully believe this is an issue for some books + pens because I've read about it multiple times, but it's never impacted me. 2) People ask "why can't they just put all the books on the pens?" but the answer is kinda obvious if you think about attempting to support that kind of business. There are tons of books you'll never see or care about and it doesn't really make sense to build in storage for a full library of everything. And the library expands, so if you buy a pen today and a new Disney movie comes out tomorrow that your kid wants the book for, you'd be out of luck if they tried to design it this way. ("Why can't they just support MicroSD and put a proprietary format file on the card for the book?" would be an EXCELLENT question, though...) 3) The books are ridiculously expensive and you almost definitely should not buy one new. Go to your local GoodWill / Salvation Army and you'll find some here and there.

Writing help

This concept of having a stylus'like instrument to get children's hands involved in the reading activity is great. My son has Down Syn. and struggles with the fine motor coordination of holding his pencil to write, but he loves to read and has a strong comprehension of sight words. This is a great toy to help him get motivated about holding a pen, writing and allowing him some fun with noises and encouragement. I am not clear on why LeapFrog has moved to a pen that is stuck with a large carry case in the new edition LeapStart. This would be of no interest to my son, but this independent pen is perfect!!

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