Reading, presenting and printing a class book

How to read a class book before you set it, show it to the class on a board or projector, and print it, without any of it counting as a student's reading.

Schools and classroomsUpdated

You can open any book your class can read, as the class will see it. Read it yourself before you set it, put it on the classroom board and read it to the class, or print it. Opening a book this way is never recorded as a student reading it.

Where to find it

  • The class's Library tab. Every finished book in the class library, and the teacher's pick, has "Read", "Present" and "Print". A book a student offered to the class has "Read", so you can read it before you add it. So does every finished book under "Books made in this class", and every book under "Add from the TaleTykes library".
  • An assignment. An open or finished assignment has "Read", "Present" and "Print" under its figures.
  • While you write questions. The "Questions" part of an assignment has "Read", which opens the book in a new tab so the questions you have written so far stay where they are.
  • Choosing a book to set. Each book under "Choose a book to set" has "Read" beside "Set this book".

You can open a class's books if you teach the class. A school admin can open the books of every class in the school.

Reading a book first

"Read" opens the book in the same reader your students use, with the same pictures, words and read-along voice. Tap a word to hear it or to see it broken into sounds. There is no Pip and no microphone, because nobody is being listened to. The book always opens at the first page. Close it with the cross at the top, or finish it, and you are back where you opened it.

Presenting a book to the class

"Present" opens the book for a board or a projector. The words are much larger, so they can be read from the back of the room, and the pictures are larger too.

  • Choose "Full screen" at the top to show only the book. Press Escape to leave full screen.
  • Turn the page with a presentation clicker, or with Page Down, the right arrow, the down arrow or the space bar. Go back with Page Up, the left arrow or the up arrow.
  • Press F to go in and out of full screen from the keyboard.
  • The play button at the bottom, "Read to me", reads the page aloud when the book has a recorded voice or the device can speak.

In a choose-your-own book, only the ways that have already been written are offered. Presenting a book never writes a new chapter or uses one of the school's books.

What is recorded

Nothing. Reading or presenting a book does not count as any student reading it: it is not on the class board, in a student's reading, on an assignment's figures or in the class's progress. Students who read the book themselves, on their own devices, are counted as usual.

Printing a class book

"Print" opens the book laid out for paper, the same page a family prints from. Press "Print this book", and choose your printer or "Save as PDF" in your browser's print window. The page says how many sheets it prints on.

The last sheet has a code that opens the book on TaleTykes. It asks who is reading first, so it only works for the class.

If a book has been laid out for printing several times in the last hour, the page says so and some pictures may not have loaded. Wait a little while and reload the page.

Where to go next

Help for teachers has short answers while you work. For anything else, write to support@taletykes.com or use Contact.

Next in Schools and classrooms: The class board

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