Early Reader – Free open source reading app I built for my 4-year-old
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…
Early Reader – Free open source reading app I built for my 4-year-old launched on April 14, 2026 with 5 votes, #1,846 of 21,248 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches.
What it does
A mobile app implementing the DISTAR phonics methodology pioneered by Siegfried Engelmann, combined with spaced repetition learning algorithms and a touch of AI. - melvinmt/early-reader-app
In the maker’s words, at launch
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…
Does a similar job
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Open-source early-reading reader with phonics help3d ago · github.com · ▲23A free reading app for kids who just learned their phonics sounds: every word in a story can be sounded out, tap a word for its sounds. Bring your own agent (MCP). Cloudflare Workers. - finereli/yarareads
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