The 12 Storytelling Apps That Will Read Books to Your Kids For You
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We're all looking for a million things for our kids to do — both educational activities and things that will get them moving — while we're stuck at home. One of the most fun ways to get our kids' imaginations boosted is through books, whether they're listening to or reading a book and imagining the story or are using their creative energies to come up with their own tales.
Add a literacy and reading component to your temporary homeschooling schedule with storytelling apps that will either read to your kids for you or help them to create unique stories that they can read for the whole family later. Scroll through for 11 of our favorite apps.
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Audible & Audible Stories
Although Audible is a great audiobooks app for all, its extensive library of children's books makes it awesome for little listeners, too. The app has a curated selection of audiobooks for kids ages 13 and under, specifically.
Additionally, Audible has launched Audible Stories, a completely free streaming site that offers content that's engaging, entertaining, and educational for kids, teens, and families.
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Sparkle Stories
Sparkle Stories has over 1,200 original stories for kids ages 3 through 12. Its kindness-centered stories are recorded slowly so that kids don't miss anything.
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Wonderscope
Wonderscope is a different kind of storytelling app, as it uses augmented reality (AR) to transform your home (or whatever is in the space in front of your phone's camera) into an extraordinary story. According to its app page, "Through your Wonderscope, you can see the story take place all around you, whether you open the app in your room or outdoors. Read your lines aloud to engage with and talk to characters, and help them solve problems along the way." Plus, it's free until the end of the school year!
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Bedtime Stories
With Bedtime Stories, your kids can actual listen to stories before bed, but its new feature also makes it so you and your kids can go through "Storytelling School" to learn how to become better storytellers.
Storyline Online
Although Storyline Online — a children's literacy website that features celebrities reading popular kids' books aloud — has an app, right now, the company is featuring a number of free story-reading videos on YouTube. Above, watch Kristen Bell read Quackenstein Hatches a Family and check out Storyline Online's YouTube channel for more.
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Chatterpix
With Chatterpix, kids can make anything "chatter" by uploading a photo and drawing a mouth somewhere on the photo. Even though it's not exclusively a storytelling app, using it can be a fun way to have kids practice reading aloud by creating a recording of a favorite book.
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Dr. Seuss Treasury Kids Books
With the Dr. Seuss Treasury Kids Books app, kids can listen to Dr. Seuss's award-winning books narrated with music and sound effects.
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Lipa Theater
With Lipa Theater, kids can tell stories with puppets of different themes like the Wild West, a fairy tale castle, "Life on Mars," and pirates.
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Novel Effect
With Novel Effect, kids and parents can read hundreds of books with custom audio that includes music, sound effects, and character voices that match each story.
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Imagistory
The Imagistory app allows you to bring your child's imagination to life through creating and recording stories. The app provides wordless picture books, and it's up to you and the kids to create the story that goes with the pages. Record them and play them back over and over, or share them with family and friends!
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One More Story
One More Story wants to inspire a love of reading in all kids with its library of picture books that are read aloud through the app. Kids can listen to the books read out automatically or read themselves with its "I Can Read It" mode.
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Story Mouse
Your kids' favorite books are all on Story Mouse, where they're read with tons of character and complemented by colorful illustrations.