When a family invites you to follow their readers, we send you an email headed "You have been invited to read along". It shows the email address of the person who invited you and has a button, "Accept the invitation". The link works for 7 days and can be used once.
Before you start
You need a TaleTykes account of your own. Making one costs nothing, and reading along does not start a plan or ask for a card. If you already have an account, use that one.
Accept the invitation while signed in to your own account. If you press "Accept" while the family's own account is signed in on that device, the page says "That invitation is your own." and the invitation is used up, so the family will need to send you a new one.
Accept the invitation
- Press "Accept the invitation" in the email.
- If you are not signed in, we ask you to sign in. If you have no account yet, press "Create one" under the sign-in form.
- To make an account, we first ask the month and year you were born, to check that an adult is setting it up, and we do not keep them. Then fill in "Your name", "Email address" and "Password", and tick the box to say you have read the terms and the privacy notice. Once the account is made, you go straight back to the invitation. Setting up your account has more on this step.
- You arrive at "Read along with another family". Under "Before you accept", read what you will and will not be able to do.
- Press "Accept". When you see "You are in", press "See their readers".
What you see afterwards
If you have no readers of your own, your Home page is headed "Readers shared with you", and your menu has Home, Plan and books, Settings and Help. If you do have readers of your own, the family's readers appear below them.
Either way, the family's readers are listed under "Shared with you". Each reader has a button with "Open" and their name, which takes you to their page. What a shared grown-up sees explains what is on it.
If the family made you a guardian, you can also sign their readers in on a device you set up, so that you can read together. Trusted devices, and why your child needs one explains how.
An account with no readers of its own is closed if nobody signs in to it for a long time, after one warning email. Signing in now and then keeps it; What happens to an account nobody signs in to explains.
No card check to read along
Before a family adds a reader, we check that an adult set the account up, using a card. The family who invited you has already done that for their own readers, so you do not need the check to look at them. If they made you a guardian, you do not need it to set up your own device for their readers either.
You only need the check if you want to add readers of your own. Your Home page shows a "Readers of your own" box with a "Check your account" link, and an "Add a reader of your own" link. Why we ask for a card explains the check.
If the link does not work
| What the page says | What to do |
|---|---|
| "That invitation has expired or has already been used." | Ask the family to send a new invitation from their settings. |
| "That invitation is your own." | Sign in to your own account, and ask the family to send a new invitation. |
| "That link is missing something" | The address may have been cut short. Open the link from the email again, or ask for it to be sent again. |
If you see "That is a few tries in a row", wait a little and press "Accept" again.
Leave a family
You can stop reading along at any time.
- Go to Settings > Sharing with other grown-ups.
- Under "Families you read along with", press "Leave" next to the family.
- On "Stop reading along?", press "Leave".
Their readers are removed from your account, and any device you set up stops signing their readers in. Readers of your own are not affected. The family can invite you again if you would like to come back, and they can also remove you from their side. Both are recorded.
Where to go next
- Share your readers with another grown-up is the family's side of the same invitation.
- If an invitation will not work after trying the steps above, ask us through Help in your dashboard. If you cannot sign in at all, write to support@taletykes.com or use Contact.