Read for Rewards

Read for Rewards turns reading a real, paper book into points a child can spend on something they actually want — and now does their spelling list too.

They photograph a few pages. The phone reads them, thinks up questions about what happened, and marks the answers. How much they read sets how many points are going. Answering right first time earns all of them; going back to the book and finding it earns some, because looking again is worth more than guessing again.

A grown-up decides what the points buy. An hour on the console. Choosing dinner. Staying up half an hour later. The best rewards cost a household nothing.

SPELLING, DICTATED LIKE A TEACHER

Photograph the list sent home from school and the app reads it out, a word at a time, for your child to write down.

Each word is said on its own, then used in a sentence, then said again. That is how a teacher dictates, and for a reason: "their" and "there" are the same sound, so a word on its own is a guess. The sentence is what makes it a question.

It is your phone's own voice, in your own accent, so a child in Manchester and a child in Perth each hear the vowel their teacher would use. No recording is made and no sound leaves the phone. The sentences take one trip to our server, the first time a list is scanned — the words go, nothing else — and are kept on the phone after that, so later sittings need no connection.

A point for every word spelled right. Words come back on later days until they are known — three times right, on three different days — and then stop being asked. Anything missed can be practised straight away, which earns nothing, because the answer has just been shown; it is how the word gets to tomorrow.

Before anybody is tested, misread words are flagged to be corrected by hand. A camera that reads "aisle" as "aiste" would otherwise teach the wrong spelling.

YOUR SHELF

Every book already read, as a shelf of covers, with the spelling lists still to learn sitting in front of them.

EVERY ANSWER COMES WITH THE PROOF

Under each answer is the sentence from the book that proves it, so a child can see why, and a grown-up can see the question was fair.

YOUR CHILD'S READING STAYS WITH YOU

Photographs of pages never leave the phone; they are deleted the moment the words have been read from them. Names, answers, points and reading history stay on the phone too. There is no account to make and nothing to sign in to.

To write the questions, the app sends only the words from the page to our server, which keeps no copy.

FOR SEVERAL CHILDREN

Set up as many readers as share the phone. Each gets their own points, their own reading, and their own colours — so it is never a mystery whose turn it is. Rewards can belong to the household or to one child.

FOR GROWN-UPS

Behind a PIN: what has been read and when, how many words, how many questions were right, and the sittings themselves with every question and answer. Set up the rewards, and spend the points when they have been earned.

Children cannot reach any of it, and cannot award themselves anything.

REWARD TIMERS

Spending points on screen time? Start a timer as you hand it over. The countdown sits in a notification, and an alarm goes off when time is up.

WHAT YOU NEED

An Android phone with a camera, and a real book.

WHAT IT COSTS

Twenty-five pages free. After that, one subscription covers every reader on this phone: A$9.99 a year or A$1.99 a month, renewing automatically until cancelled in Google Play.