Alternatives
Products that do what Early Reader – Free open source reading app I built for my 4-year-old does
Over the holidays I went looking for a reading app for my 4-year-old daughter. The top app in this space charges $500/month. Since that's a bit much to pay for an app, I figured I could vibe code something better in a few days, so I tried. The app uses DISTAR phonics, which is a method from the 60s by Siegfried Engelmann. The core idea is simple: teach sounds before letter names, then blend sounds into words, then words into sentences. There's a specific sequence that builds on itself. On top of that I added spaced repetition, same algorithm as Anki. Cards come back at increasing…
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I wanted to share a project that I've been working on designed to help young kids go from reading single words to reading whole books. My husband and I started spending a lot of time teaching our 5-year-old (Alex) to read because our school district is exclusively doing remote learning and I was skeptical that he could learn to read over Zoom. We used flashcards (which Alex found boring) and then combined them into sentences (which Alex found interesting). But the sentence approach requires a lot of arranging pieces of paper and remembering which words you are working on. So I developed…
2020
- 2MI
Hello HN, this has been my personal project for quite some time now. It has been a slowly evolving project over the years and its core function is for users to expose themselves to progressively more difficult lessons of music notes. NOTE: It is free and there are no ads. There is an in app purchase but most of the app doesn't require it.
2025 · apps.apple.com
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Hi HN! I've been working on BookWith, an open-source e-book reader that integrates AI as your reading companion. The problem: Traditional e-readers are passive. When you encounter something unclear, you have to context-switch to search for it. Your highlights and notes remain isolated, and you can't easily connect ideas across different books. My solution: BookWith embeds an AI that maintains full context of what you're reading. It features: - Context-aware AI chat: Ask questions about the current page/chapter and get instant answers - AI podcast generation: Automatically converts book…
2025 · github.com
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Hey HN! I’m Alex, and one of my favorite ways to learn languages is by reading novels. Currently I’m reading 三体 (3 body problem), but one problem I've always had is it takes ages to look up words, and add them to Anki flashcards so I can remember them. 三体 is especially brutal with so much sci-fi vocab. That’s why I built Readly. I snap a pic of the page I’m reading, it loads the text in-app and lets me lookup words, add to Anki-style flashcards, or ask AI questions about the text, all in a single tap. It's a huge time saver. My specific learning strategy, if anyone wants to replicate it: 1.…
2025 · readly.ink
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This was my first attempt of making something truly appealing and useful. I've learned a lot and I'm pretty happy with the result. What do you think?
2011 · itunes.apple.com
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I'm a long time lurker that recently quit my job to work on my own projects, a lot due to the inspiration from Hacker News. Now I have published my first serious project, an app for learning how to write Japanese characters. It's the app I always wanted but couldn't find when I was studying. It tries to be simple to use, you just start the quiz and go with the flow. There's no need to plan and manage your studies, and it uses spaced repetition for better retention. There's a promo page with more details up at http://www.kanjibyhand.com. It's only for Android so far. The free version includes…
2012
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I wanted to share a few AI related things I've made for my kids (ages 2 and 4). It's mind blowing that the tech didn't exist in a useful state a year ago and now I end up using it almost daily. 1. Story creator app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/custom-ai-stories/id1669159225 - iphone app to create and read stories. This uses the openAI API and Amazon Polly (text to speech). Icon generated by Midjourney. Recently the stories have been taking a bit longer than the estimate to generate, I think due to increased openAI API usage 2. Belle uses the potty book -…
2023
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2020 · apps.apple.com
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I've been an early adopter of speed reading tools. I have tried to maximize my use of speed reading tools for browsing. But, I travel a lot and I couldn't find any such free app for my iPhone. So, I built one for iOS - 1000 WPM (http://1000wpm.in) I have received positive feedback from users and people are finding it useful. I just hope that you guys will find it useful too. Here are some promo codes for HN early adopters. 3H4ELR6AFYYX W3HE9WHYT3FX ME9HN3TWF9WM YAKEAY67HYML 6MHLXNXMKR46 JJH4T9Y7AXL9 T9EAY9YRYFKL W4JXTPWL4HTR LJ4RMWFJ3WL9 P7Y3XR4YN7LH Feedback/comments are…
2014
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Made this app because I was tired of not knowing 50 words/book when I read in English. You can try it on the AppStore searching "Quicky app". For Android user please use the web mobile version at https://quicky.app/. The Desktop version has a shitty responsive design. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are not French, you will want to tell you are to try the features of the app (sorry it's only in French though) I'd love to hear your feedback.
2019
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Unlock the world of reading with Little Readers Flashcard.
Aug 2026 · play.google.com
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Hi all, i made an iOS HN reader, so i can read HN nicely on my iphone while pushing my daughter on the swing (she likes going on the swing for a good hour on saturdays... go figure). Anyway i figured i'd open source it and show it here: http://splinter.com.au/hacker-news-reader https://github.com/chrishulbert/HackerNewsReader And its on the app store if you couldn't be bothered firing up xcode: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-reader/id457519010?ls=1&mt=8 Anyway, hopefully someone out there can learn something looking at the code. There seems to be a dearth of example code /…
2011
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We just launched our startup tonight! It's called Fetchnotes, and it's a note-taking application for short notes like books to read, shopping lists and ideas. Check out our website at www.fetchnotes.com. We're on the web, Android, iPhone, Mac, Windows and Ubuntu — and you can even text or email in your notes. We were just covered in TechCrunch (http://tcrn.ch/IBfr9C), and we'd love for you to check it out and give us your feedback. You can send it to me (Alex Schiff) and my co-founder (Chase Lee) at [email protected], or use our UserVoice forum at fetchnotes.uservoice.com. Also, we're…
2012
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Hey, HN. I am excited to present to you what my pet project has turned into after three years of development. One day, I decided to create the most convenient application for reading all my favorite articles, as well as RSS feeds from Hacker News and other sources. The usual reading approach was not enough for me, so I loaded this application with five different reading techniques that help to achieve maximum productivity and reading speed. 1. Text-to-speech is the most popular reading method among Quickify users. I'm using it when I'm busy or my eyes need a rest. This method is available in…
2023 · quickify.app
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2014 · github.com
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Timber reads any article, book, PDF, or pasted text aloud in natural voices — 324+ free, across 71 languages, all on your iPhone. Built by a teacher. Free on the App Store.
11d ago · timberreader.com
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My kids are endlessly curious, always asking questions like “Why do stars twinkle?” or “How do volcanoes erupt?” I love their curiosity, but I found myself constantly searching for good ways to answer them, and without adding more screen time to their day. Podcasts are great, but kids’ podcasts are often generic and don’t cover their specific questions. I wanted something more personal and engaging. So I built WonderPods - an app that creates personalized podcast episodes to answer whatever they’re curious about, even saying their name in the story. It turns their curiosity into fun,…
2025 · wonderpods.app
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