Every finished book your child makes has a page of its own on your side of TaleTykes. From there you can read it through, take it off your child's shelf, change the words on a page, or have one picture drawn again.
Opening a book's own page
- Go to Readers and choose your child.
- Open the "Books" tab. Every book your child has made is listed there, newest first, with its status and its reading level.
- Press "Look over it" beside the book.
"Look over it" appears beside books that are ready, put away or waiting for you. A book that is still being made, is being checked or was not made has no page to look over yet; When a book cannot be made explains those.
The page is headed with the book's title and "Made for" your child's first name. It shows the cover, then every page of the book with its picture and its words.
Only you, the account holder, can open these pages. Grown-ups you share your readers with can see the titles of finished books but cannot open them; What shared grown-ups see explains what they can do.
The other buttons on the Books tab
A book that is ready also has these buttons beside it:
- "Print or save" opens a page laid out for paper. See Printing or saving a book.
- "Record your voice" lets you record yourself reading the book, page by page. See Recording your voice.
- "Have it read aloud" appears when a book does not yet have a recorded voice on every page and none has been asked for, which usually means a chapter book. See Having a chapter book read aloud.
Putting a book away and bringing it back
"Put it away" takes the book off your child's shelf. They cannot see it, and nothing about it is deleted. The book's page then says it is put away, and "Bring it back" returns it to their shelf.
If a book shows "Waiting for you", it is finished and has passed every check, but it is not on your child's shelf yet. "Put it on their shelf" puts it there, and "Put it away" keeps it off.
A book you have reported to us stays put away while a person looks at it, and "Bring it back" is not offered in the meantime. Whether you can bring it back afterwards depends on what they decide; see Telling us about a problem with a book.
Changing the words on a page
- Under the page, press "Change the words".
- Edit the words in the box.
- Press "Save the words", or "Leave it" to keep the page as it was.
The checks the book passed run again on your words. Words that read well above your child's age group, or too many words they cannot yet sound out, are refused, and the page tells you why. The same goes for anything our safety checks would not allow in a child's book, and for a page that has grown much longer than it was.
Once your change is saved:
- If the book has a recorded voice, that page is recorded again, which takes a minute or two. Until then, the device's own voice reads it.
- The easier and richer versions of that page are removed, so your child sees your words whichever version they are reading.
Drawing a picture again
If a picture has come out wrong, press "Draw this picture again" under its page. Each picture can be drawn again once. The new picture is checked in the same way as the first one, and the old picture stays if the new one is no better.
While the new picture is being made, the page shows "Being drawn again" and the old picture stays in place. After that, the page shows "Drawn again once already". If the picture is also the book's cover, the cover keeps the old picture. Drawing a picture again does not use a book from your allowance.
If something is wrong with the book
If a change on this page will not fix the problem, or something in the book should not be there at all, use "Something is wrong with this book" at the bottom of the page. Telling us about a problem with a book explains what happens next.
If you would like a change we do not offer here, ask us through Help in your dashboard and choose "The reading level, or how a book turned out".