LeapFrog Tag reading system

Approx. price: £39.99

Age range: 4–8

Website: www.leapfrog.co.uk

The Tag reading system uses a simple concept to great effect – a tiny camera in the tip of the Tag reader scans the point at which the reader touches the page and plays the appropriate word or sound. In this way, children who are learning to read can pick out words they are having difficulty with, or bring the story to life with the sound effects.

We say simple, but this is really a quite remarkable feat. The sounds are triggered by near-invisible patterns of data printed onto each page. The degree of detail that needs to be printed so that each small area triggers the right sound is boggling, yet throughout our test we didn’t find a single sound or word that was incorrectly encoded.

A technical marvel this is, then. What do kids think of it? The good news is that children really enjoy using the Tag reader to go through a book. The title supplied, Ozzie and Mack, is bright and colourful and there is a wealth of hidden detail in the pictures that kids delight in discovering.

With younger children you have to take care that they don’t get over-excited and start pressing the reader into the page too enthusiastically, but children towards the top end of the target age range (4–8) are able to take a more measured approach.

The Tag reader can also read out the entire story, so little ones who have only just started reading can enjoy having the story told to them while they look at the gorgeous pictures.

The Tag system will be work with the (free) LeapFrog “Learning Path” when it launches in time for Christmas. This will let grown-ups track the progress made by their children to see where they’re having problems and where they’re forging ahead.

Even before the Learning Path launches there is online functionality. You hook up the Tag via USB cable to a PC and download the audio for your Tag books. The reader can hold five titles at the same time.

Additional titles available are Po’s Tasty Training, The Cat in the Hat, Paddington Bear, Disney Pixar Cars, Disney Princess, Go Diego Go, SpongeBob Square Pants, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and Olivia. Each is priced around £11.99, which seems a bit high, but the printing process involved inevitably costs more than regular printing and you are getting a lot more than an ordinary book.

Overall, this is eye-opening technology that will doubtless find many other applications in educational toys. As it stands, LeapFrog has already created a really original product that captures the imagination of children and encourages them to read – and that has to be a good thing!

Durability: 4/5
Longevity: 4/5
Value: 4/5
Score: 86%
Conclusion: A very clever application of technology to encourage reading.