When a child in the five to seven age group is making a book, the book maker can offer Read it together. A book made this way has two lines on every page: a longer one for you to read aloud, and a short one for your child to read.
Why there are two lines
Your child's books are written with words they can sound out from the letter sounds they have been taught. That is what makes the books readable for them, and it also keeps the language in them simple.
A book to read together keeps that and adds a line for you. Your line is written the way a good picture book is written to be read aloud, with richer words and more going on. Your child's line is held to their letter sounds exactly as their other books are, and the same checks are run on it. The story is told between the two lines, so your child hears language beyond what they can read yet and still reads their own part of every page.
The new words a book brings in, the ones with a dotted line under them, go in your line. Your child can tap any of them to hear it and see what it means.
Who is offered it
Readers aged five to seven whose books are held to their letter sounds, and only for books in English. It is not offered to the youngest age group, whose books are read to them in full, or to older readers, whose books are long enough that a line for a grown-up on every page would turn a shared read into a very long one.
It is a choice for each book. Your child's other books are unchanged, and they can make an ordinary book next time.
How the page looks
Your line comes first, marked Grown-up reads. Your child's line follows it, marked You read, on a light yellow band. The names are written out as well as shown in color, so the two lines can be told apart without relying on color.
What the voice does
When you press play, the voice reads your line, because it is standing in for you. Your child's line is theirs to read, so the voice reads it only when they press Hear my line. After that, play goes back to your line.
If your child uses Just listen, both lines are read on every page, yours first, so the whole story is heard.
When your child reads a page to Pip, only their own line is listened to. Your line is never part of it.
Printing, sharing and changing the words
A printed copy has both lines on each page, each labeled in words, so it works on a printer without color. A story code shows both lines too.
On the book's page in your account you can change the words of either line. Your line is read aloud again afterwards. Your child's line goes through the same checks it passed when the book was made, so a word they cannot yet sound out is refused with the reason.
Recording your own line
On a book read together, Record your voice on the book's page offers both lines of every page. Record your own line and, when your child's reader is set to hear a grown-up from home, the book plays your recording of it instead of the reading voice, with the words lighting up as you say them. You can record your child's line too, for when they press Hear my line; any line you do not record is read by Pip as usual. The recordings are kept and deleted the same way as any other recording you make of a book.
If you do not see the option
It is switched on for the service as a whole in stages, so it may not be offered yet. If your child is in the five to seven age group and it is offered, the button is on the first screen of the book maker. Books already made to read together stay that way even if the option is later taken away.