Can I just get on Reading Eggs? How a high-performing Florida district made Reading Eggs stick, scale and succeed

Good programs don't stay under the radar in schools. Teachers talk, and word spreads faster than any marketing campaign (try as we might).

That's how Reading Eggs first arrived in Walton County School District in Northwest Florida. Reading coaches and classroom teachers who had used it elsewhere kept recommending it, so the district gave it a shot in the 2023–24 school year.

Carla Sconiers had heard those recommendations firsthand and made a few of her own. Today she's Walton County's Instructional Support Coordinator, overseeing literacy instruction from pre-K through 12th grade. She spent years as a 1st-grade teacher and then a reading coach supporting individual schools, so when it comes to reading instruction, Carla knows it inside and out.

For her, Reading Eggs was a keeper.

"I had the opportunity to use [Reading Eggs] in my classroom, and the students were so excited about the program," she recalls.

Several years later, that early enthusiasm remains as strong as ever. Walton County is a consistently high-performing district, and the grade levels using Reading Eggs have seen reading proficiency climb year after year.

Plus, the district draws on the full suite – Reading Eggs, Reading Eggspress, Fast Phonics, and the printable resources behind them – all woven into a structured literacy block. To us, they're a bit of a dream district – a model of how Reading Eggs is meant to be used.

Carla kindly agreed to sit down with us, so let's go behind the scenes of Reading Eggs success at Walton County.

When educators vouch for a program: how Walton County came to Reading Eggs

What district leaders trust above almost anything else is the judgment of other educators – so when the encouragement to adopt Reading Eggs kept coming, it meant something.

"We were getting a lot of positive encouragement to give Reading Eggs a try," Carla says.

When the people who'll use a program every day are the ones asking for it, the decision to invest gets a lot easier. That early confidence proved well founded.

"Our district's experience using Reading Eggs over the past several school years has been very positive," Carla says.

It started strong in that first year and has held ever since.

Digital learning that doesn't feel like the others

Most districts run a whole stack of digital tools, and Walton County is no exception – several of the same programs show up across multiple subjects, ELA included. Anyone managing edtech at scale knows the catch: when students meet the same interface in reading, math, and science, the novelty fades (and so does their attention). Reading Eggs gives them a much-needed change of pace.

"Almost the appearance of the platform seems fun to the kids," Carla says. "It gives them something different."

And that difference does real work. Seeing the same screen in subject after subject gets boring, and as Carla points out, no one wants students burning out on devices. A program kids genuinely enjoy is one they'll ask for by name, on repeat. Carla recalls rainy indoor-recess days in her own classroom, when students could have reached for the blocks or the Legos. Instead, they'd ask, "Can I just get on Reading Eggs?"

When kids are begging to get on the very thing that's teaching them to read, you know you've reached a level of engagement most tools never do.

Striking the right on-and-off-screen balance (with curriculum-aligned printables)

Carla also pointed out that Reading Eggs solves the worksheet problem – one educators know too well.

Part of what makes that possible is how easily the program moves between on-screen and off-screen learning, giving teachers a natural way to balance the two. When a teacher needs a quick supplementary resource, the easy move is to grab something off the internet, with no guarantee it matches the curriculum the district has carefully approved. Walton County works hard to avoid that.

"We do try to follow our board approved curriculum very closely and not pull random worksheets from just anywhere," Carla says. "So having [Reading Eggs] as a board approved resource has been really critical for teachers."

The printable side of Reading Eggs is a big part of that. In everyday practice, if a grade level is working on silent final e, the supporting worksheets are already there and already aligned to core instruction. Carla notes her kindergarten teachers regularly use the handwriting worksheets to support their scope and sequence for teaching letters.

It also lets teachers use technology on their own terms, as they can lean on the devices for independent practice and reach for printables when a skill is better taught on paper. For a district mindful of screen time, that balance matters – not resisting technology but embracing it in the most meaningful way possible.

Meeting every reader where they are

Differentiation keeps classroom teachers awake at night – that is, unless they've got Reading Eggs.

Carla is quick to name it as one of the program's real strengths.

"Not all students in a classroom are going to be on the same reading level," she says, so letting each child work where they need to, when they need to, takes real pressure off teachers. When students log on individually, they're working at their own level, "whether that is with a struggling reader or an accelerated reader."

Differentiation also happens at the teacher's direction. Many Walton County teachers use Reading Eggs as a technology rotation during center time for Tier 1 small groups, and when a student needs support with a particular skill, teachers can pull targeted lessons to match. This gives them the flexibility to support their core instruction directly.

That range matters in a high-performing district like Walton County, where high flyers are common. Some of the strongest readers move into Reading Eggspress (for middle elementary students) to develop more advanced skills, allowing teachers to dig deeper into specific benchmarks.

Digging into the data: how the district puts Reading Eggs reporting to work

Walton County has put a strong emphasis on foundational reading for the past four to five years, particularly in VPK (voluntary pre-k) through 2nd grade, and has seen results climb as well.

"Each year we are seeing an increase in proficiency for our ELA scores in all of the grade levels who utilize Reading Eggs. We would like to assume that some of that success has come from being able to use Reading Eggs as a support.”

Although Carla’s careful about the connection, positioning the program as one meaningful support within a district-wide focus on early literacy rather than the sole driver, it has coincided with rising proficiency in these exact grades – a connection worth paying attention to.

The reporting itself works at two levels. District-wide, Carla's team tracks overall usage and how well each campus is using its licenses, then recognizes the schools making the most progress at principals' meetings – which has a way of sparking friendly competition between schools.

Closer to the classroom, reading coaches use the same data to spot the skills individual students are struggling with, pair it with what teachers see day to day, and turn to Reading Eggs to deliver the targeted support a child needs.

Engagement, engagement, engagement – the thread that holds it all together

For all the talk of data and differentiation, Carla's explanation is simpler: the kids LOVE using it.

"Teachers like the platform because students like the platform," she says.

"As a classroom teacher, it's a lot easier to implement and use a program with fidelity that students are excited about."

Reading Eggs is an ESSA-certified literacy program kids look forward to is one that gets used week in, week out, the way it's meant to be. We were also thrilled to hear that the buzz follows students outside the classroom walls, as Carla's own two children came home speaking highly of it.

The support helps too: when the district needs a report or has a question, Carla's team knows the 3P Learning reps will get back to them quickly. But mostly it's the kids. Years in, they're still asking for it.

"We have overall great feedback from our teachers and our students as they use Reading Eggs," she concludes.