Setting up has five steps: you create the account, read the notice to parents, do the card check that starts your free days, add your first reader, and set up the device your child will read on. Then you hand it over, and Pip helps your child make their first book.
1. Create the account
- Go to Create your account. The "Start with Sprout" and "Start with Grove" buttons on the pricing page lead to the same place.
- First we ask when you were born, as a month and a year. We use this once, to check that an adult is setting the account up, and we do not keep it. You need to be 18 or over. Otherwise we show "TaleTykes accounts are set up by a grown-up. Ask one to set this up with you." and that browser cannot try again for a day.
- Fill in "Your name", which is what we should call you rather than your child's name, then "Email address" and "Password". The password needs to be at least ten characters long.
- Tick the box saying you have read the terms and the privacy notice and are the adult responsible for the account, then press "Create the account".
We turn away throwaway addresses and addresses that cannot receive mail, because everything about your account is sent there. We also email you "Confirm your email address". Confirming is worth doing, but you can carry on setting up first; see Confirming your email address.
2. Read the notice to parents
Next you land on a page headed "One step before you add a reader". Its first card, "Read this first", shows our notice to parents, which explains what we collect about a child and what we do with it. Read it, tick "I have read this, and I am the parent or guardian of the children I am about to add.", and press "Continue".
3. Do the card check
The next card is headed "Now we check that you are an adult". Before we hold anything about a child, the law asks us to know that an adult set up the account, and a card is how we check.
- Under "Use a card", press "Start 3 free days".
- Our payment provider's page opens. Enter your card there. Your bank authorizes it while you are present, and nothing is charged until the free days end.
- When it is done, you come back to TaleTykes on a page called "Add your first reader". If you leave the payment page without finishing, you come back to the card step instead.
This one step also starts your free trial, which is always on Sprout, paid monthly, whichever pricing button you pressed. Why we ask for a card explains what we keep, and How the free trial works explains what happens when the free days end.
4. Add your first reader
On "Add your first reader", type your child's first name, choose their age group, pick a picture, choose the language for their stories, and choose a PIN or a set of pictures for them to sign in with. Then press "Add reader". Adding your first reader goes through each field.
When the reader is saved, your dashboard opens on a card saying your child is ready to read.
5. Set up the device and hand it over
Your child can only sign in on a device that you have signed in on and set up for reading. If you are holding that device now, press "Start (your child's name) reading" on the card, which sets the device up and opens your child's sign-in screen in one step. The "Getting started" list on Home also has a "Trust this device" button, and ticks each step off as you finish it. See Setting up a device for your child.
Hand the device over. Your child taps their numbers or pictures, and the first time they sign in, Pip says hello. The welcome is short and depends on age:
- Ages 2 to 5: your child taps Pip to see what a tap does, picks the picture that is them, and picks who should be in their stories.
- Ages 5 to 7: the same, plus where stories should happen, with a word under each picture.
- Ages 7 to 12: your child picks their picture and, if they want to, up to three characters and how their stories should feel.
The last screen has "Make a book", which opens the book maker. The house button at the top of each welcome screen, labeled "Not now" on larger screens, goes to your child's Home instead. The welcome is shown once. To offer it again, open the reader's Settings and press "Show the welcome again" under "Pip's welcome". Making your first book together covers what comes next.
If a step will not go through, write to us at support@taletykes.com or use Contact.