Questions

TaleTykes is a reading app that writes and illustrates a new picture book or chapter book for your child, at the reading level they are actually at, and then reads it along with them one word at a time. Your child chooses who is in the story and where it happens by tapping pictures. There is no typing and no spelling.

Books are written for four age bands: two to five, five to seven, seven to nine, and nine to twelve. The product is aimed squarely at four to nine, which is where reading is being learned and where the read-along and decodable text do the most work. Length, number of pictures, whether there are chapters, and how much can go wrong in the story all change with the band.

Three taps. They pick who is in the story and where it happens from pictures, the book is written and illustrated for their level, and then they read it. The only thing a child ever types is a name for the main character, and that is limited to what a name can be.

No. TaleTykes runs in a web browser on a phone, tablet, laptop or desktop, so there is nothing to install and nothing to keep updated. It can be saved to a home screen if you would rather it opened like an app.

Pip is the character who helps a child who cannot read the buttons yet, then gets out of the way. Pip speaks once when a screen opens and then stops, and never claims to be a friend, a pet, or a person. When something cannot be done, Pip says so plainly rather than offering a way round it.

Two things make text harder: longer sentences, and less familiar words. Both are measured on every book before it is illustrated, and we store a grade estimate, a reading measure in the style of the ones schools use, and a banding letter. A draft that misses the level it was written for is rewritten before a single picture is drawn.

Yes, for the band that is still learning to decode. Every word in those stories is one your child can sound out with the letter sounds they have been taught, apart from a small set learned by sight and the character names, and the order follows the phases schools teach in. Decodable text is a scaffold rather than a reading programme, so the restriction comes off as a child moves on.

The word being spoken lights up and is underlined as your child hears it, so following along never depends on seeing a colour. Tapping any word says it aloud, shows the sounds it is built from, and gives a short meaning. Reading while listening helps with pace and expression, and seeing the word at the same moment helps it stick.

It is built for the two things that usually put a child off: a book that is too hard, and a book about nothing they care about. Every story is written at the level they can manage and about what they chose. We cannot promise a child will want to read, and we do not use streaks or rewards to push them, because a child reading to keep a number alive is not the habit worth building.

Yes, from inside the book. Cream, white, mist or night paper, normal, roomy or airy line spacing, text up to half again as large, and a choice of typeface. Lexend is the default because the evidence for it is strongest. OpenDyslexic is offered because some readers prefer it, though the research does not show it improves reading and we will not tell you otherwise.

Yes. The words and the pictures are generated by a large language model and an image model from xAI, guided by what your child chose and by the rules for their age band. Nothing is picked off a shelf of pre-written stories, which is why your child can be the character and why no two books come out the same.

Only if something checks them, which is the part most of this product is. Every story passes four levels of checking before anyone sees it, cheapest first: a word list matched whole rather than in fragments, a scoring step that weighs a concern against the age it was written for, a closer look at anything near the line, and a person for anything still unclear. When a check cannot finish, the story waits rather than going through.

A person reads every book before it becomes visible to anyone outside your family. A book only reaches that point if you have turned sharing on for that child, and a shared book shows a first name only. Books your child keeps to themselves are checked automatically rather than read by a member of our team.

That no check of this kind is perfect. That is exactly why a person reviews everything that becomes public, why every shared book has a report button that reaches a person rather than an automated queue, and why the controls for turning themes, characters and sharing off exist for you rather than only for us.

No. What your child does is never used to train anything outside this product, never sold, and never shared with anyone else. Learning from what they enjoy, inside the product, is off until you turn it on, and turning it back off removes what was learned.

A first name or whatever you choose to call them, an age band rather than a date of birth, an avatar they picked, a hashed way of signing in, the books they made and read, and the choices they made from the picture menus. There is no email address, no surname, no date of birth, no location and no photograph. There is no field for a surname anywhere, so there is nothing to leak.

Nothing about a child is collected until an adult has been verified, and that check is enforced where the record would be written rather than only by hiding a page. You are given a notice of what is collected before you consent to it, and retention is a scheduled job that deletes what is past its window rather than a paragraph in a policy.

Turn off any themes or characters you would rather not see. Set a daily limit, after which Pip says it is time for a rest and offers nothing to extend it. Decide whether a child may share anything at all, which is off unless you turn it on. Decide whether we learn from what they enjoy, also off by default. End every signed-in session on every device from your dashboard.

None of the three. There is no counter that resets, no daily reward, no notification that a child is falling behind, and nothing is advertised to children. Re-reading a book is encouraged because re-reading genuinely helps a child read it better, and it is not counted towards anything.

Two plans. Sprout is $12.99 a month for 15 books and up to 2 children. Grove is $24.99 a month for 40 books and up to 4 children, with longer chapter books and series that keep the same characters. Books are shared across everyone in the family. Paying yearly costs 2 months less than paying monthly.

Yes: 7 days, with 2 books included. Starting the trial is the same action as proving an adult set the account up, because both are a card, so it is one step rather than two. Nothing is charged until the trial ends, and cancelling before then costs nothing.

To check that an adult set up the account, which the law requires before anything about a child is collected. It also starts your free trial. Your card details go to our payment provider and never to us, and there is no route to a free book that does not pass an adult.

Extra books can be added at any time and never expire. Packs start at 10 books for $8.99. A picture book uses one and a longer chapter book uses two. The monthly allowance resets rather than rolling over; extra books bought separately stay until you use them.

Books already made stay readable while the account is open. If you close the account, everything is deleted after thirty days, which is there so a change of mind is possible. You are never charged for a book that fails to finish.