Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)We first purchased the Tag for our (then) 5 year old son, but could not get the audio to download. After numerous emails to LeapFrog and many tries on several different (family & friends) computers, we just could not get it to work. Very disappointing as I felt that it was truly a quality product. The only book he can use with it is the one it came with.
Enter the Bugsby. Each book has it's own cartridge which has a place for storage inside the back cover. For that reason I gave it an extra star for "ease of use" (at least for us!). As long as you don't loose these you're good to go and can change out the cartridge for a new story as many times as you want(the Tag could only store 5 stories at a time, if you wanted to add more you add to remove another). The pen device works in the same manner as a Tag. It has a place for headphones to be plugged in, buttons to adjust the volume up and down and a "read the whole story" button.
As far as the book that comes with it goes, it's a simple story about how Bugsby, who has lost his glasses, searches within different stories (accompanied by his friends Josh and Hanna)to find them. Along the way it labels different animals, and includes "game" buttons on each page (with "stop", "repeat", "yes" and "no" buttons to be used with it). Games include things such as "Find the animal next to the squirrel", "What animal begins with this sound 'p'?", "Do these words have the same vowel sound, 'cup'/'mat'?" and have different levels. Touching in different areas of the book produce little silly sounds, characters saying a few phrases, and short songs. The back of the book includes a two page spread of the alphabet with games to go along with it and a "Story Writer" spread which allows the child to come up with several versions of a short story, changing the character, action and setting. The book has the option to read each individual page or the whole book. I would say the reading level is K-2 depending on the child.
Overall my son (and I) like this product. I don't think it offers quite as many games or levels of play as the Tag, and the way the narrator voice of the book says certain words sounds strange to me (the T's are overemphasized on certain words - other character voices are fine though). But considering the lower price and the fact that you don't have to worry about downloading anything, the Bugsby worked much better for us.
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Vtech Bugsby Reading System Pen and Starter Book
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