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Dev tools · December 22, 2020

0A

02Books – An open source web app to teach kids to read

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…

02Books – An open source web app to teach kids to read launched on December 22, 2020 with 63 votes, #809 of 3,242 launches that month and more than 90% of that year's launches.

Alternativestop 25% of December 2020

In plain words

02Books is an open source web application that teaches young children to read by progressing from individual words to complete sentences and books. Created by a parent who found traditional flashcards ineffective, the app eliminates the need for physical materials while tracking reading progress. It requires no account to use and is freely available online, making it accessible for families and educators supporting early literacy development.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

In the maker’s words, at launch

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…

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