Vtech Bugsby Reading System Pen and Starter Book

by VTech

Product Features

• Interactive reading system featuring pen touch technology
• Curriculum focuses on reading and language arts
• Story reading + interactive activities
• Pen is shaped like a cute bookworm character
• Ages 3 - 7

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 12 x 3 x 12 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001T2ZWLU
• Item model number: 80-103000
• Manufacturer recommended age: 36 months - 5 years
• Batteries: 2 AAA batteries required. (included)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,023 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Join Bugsby the Book Worm on a reading adventure! Build early reading skills focused on reading comprehension, phonics, word recognition and more. Join Bugsby the Book Worm on a reading adventure! Your child will love that they can read along and interact with their favorite characters in stories that build early reading skills. Children will also have fun listening to the story read aloud or by playing any of the skill building reading activities that focus on reading comprehension, phonics, sentence structure, word recognition and more. Designed with convenience in mind, the Bugsby Reading System includes the software cartridge with every book title - no additional downloads required!

Product Description

Join Bugsby the Book Worm on a magical reading adventure! Your children will love reading along and interacting with their favorite characters as they build early reading skills. Kids will fall in love with reading as they have fun listening to stories read aloud by their new reading pal, Bugsby.

Children build reading skills through play as Bugbsy takes them through reading comprehension, phonics, sentence structure, word recognition and more. Kid friendly in design, the Bugsby Reading System includes software cartridge with every story book title – no additional downloads required!

• Recommended Ages: 3 - 7 years

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

109 of 111 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Easier for us to use than the Tag, November 9, 2009

By 

L. Watt - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Vtech Bugsby Reading System Pen and Starter Book (Toy)

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.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tag vs. Bugsby, October 11, 2010

By 

J. Johnson "Jen" (MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:3.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Vtech Bugsby Reading System Pen and Starter Book (Toy)

This review will compare the Leapfrog Tag and the VTech Bugsby. Thought maybe this would help others in their decision making.

We have owned the Tag for some time and my 4 1/2 year old loves it. We have recently turned OFF the TV altogether, except for some on weekends. Before that, he could have cared less about the Tag. Now he loves it. I love it too. Great toy. I haven't had one problem with the downloading part. Only thing...I see no point in owning more than 10 books (do we really need more?). Our Tag only holds ten and I WON'T connect to the computer that often to change around books. The toy is very smart and it's a huge hit.

I recently purchased the Bugsby...mainly because I thought my son would love it. He does miss his "friends" from TV and VTech's books have a lot of the characters that he recognizes. It's nice too. Sings a lot more than the Tag (you have the option of turning off the music). Also when you touch the page on a certain spot it gives three (or more) responses...that's different than Tag. If you touch a spot with Tag, it's the same every time. Adds a bit of variety. It's cheaper than the Tag...books cheaper too. My son loves seeing SuperWhy and World World. But, after seeing a new, exciting toy and playing with it for a bit...he asked for his Tag during quiet time. The cartridges are hard for a 4 year old to put in (sort of hard for a 31 year old too!) My 7 year old handled it well, but my little guy will no way be able to handle that for a while. If they were easier to put in, it might be a nicer feature over Tag because there is no connecting to the computer.

Anyway, overall, they are both very nice toys. The Bugsby is great, but comes in slightly lower than the Tag in our opinion.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bugsby vs Leapster's Tag system, April 4, 2010

By 

W. Lee - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Vtech Bugsby Reading System Pen and Starter Book (Toy)

I bought this for my 4 year old daughter since she has started trying to read. I also have a daughter who's almost 2.

They both love it so far. It's still early as they've only had it for a day so far. I will update this as we use this more, but initially, I was trying to decide between this and the Tag system. There were good reviews for both systems as well as some complaints about quality issues.

After reading reviews on both, it appears both products do the same thing. Bugsby was onsale and about a third of the price. Bugsby's books were also cheaper, and I didn't see any reason that convinced me that I should get the Tag.

Tag vs Bugsby - summary of differences

Tag hold 10 books which are downloaded.
Bugsby uses cartriges.

There are Pros/Cons to both approaches. Catridges can be lost (there is a plaeholder in each book) Downloads require installing software, downloading, and syncing with the pen)

Tag has more books to choose from

Bugsby costs less.