Readnauts
Help everyone in your family build a reading habit that lasts.
Readnauts keeps one simple record of every book your family reads, at every age and in every format: library, school, audiobook, bedtime story. Then it turns that into gentle, shared encouragement, so kids and grown-ups keep going together.
Your kids read everywhere. The proof lives nowhere.
Library books, school books, graphic novels, audiobooks, bedtime stories. The reading happens, but it's scattered. The momentum fades, and there's no shared sense of how the family is doing.
Readnauts keeps one simple record for everyone, then turns it into encouragement to keep going, so reading becomes a normal part of home, with less nagging and more reading together.
Learning doesn't happen in school alone.
A child's learning is shaped first, and most, by the people closest to them. In the most influential model of child development, the family is the innermost environment in a child's life, more constant and more formative than any school or program.1 Learning is life-wide. School is one important part of it, not the whole of it.
The research on reading bears this out. A family's involvement is among the strongest and most consistent predictors of how children do,2 and reading together at home builds language and literacy that last for years,3 an advantage still visible at age fifteen, even after accounting for family income.4 Children also read more, and read better, when reading is personal and shared. When it is driven instead by rewards and rankings, the interest it depends on tends to fade.5
Yet most tools are built for the institution, on the assumption that learning happens in school. A child's progress gets split across programs that each hold a fragment, and when a program ends or a family moves, the record is often left behind.6 The journey rarely belongs to the learner.
We believe it should, and that is where Readnauts begins, with reading. One reading life that belongs to your family, follows every reader as they grow, and keeps everyone reading together. Personal, shared, and continuous, the way the research suggests reading is most likely to last.
Type a rough title.
We find the exact book.
Half-remembered is fine. Type the title or just part of it, and Readnauts searches so you can pick the book, then fills in the cover, author and page count for you. Read it before? It's flagged as a reread automatically, and still counts.
Everyone makes real progress,
from the 5-year-old to the grown-ups.
Gentle, age-aware scoring means a phonics book, a chapter book and an audiobook each feel like a genuine win. No one is left behind, and no one runs away with it. It's encouragement, not a contest.
Ben
Jack
Mom
Example weights, fully tunable by a grown-up: early reader 2× · bridge 1.5× · chapter 1.2× · fluent 1× · audiobook 0.85×. The point isn't perfect math; it's that everyone feels proud to keep reading.
A place your family will want to open.
Home, the family view, each reader's library, shared quests, a year in review, and posters to print and share.
Every book belongs to the reader, and stays with them.
Books belong to the reader, not to a program or a school year. The shelf builds up over time, sorted by reader, series, audiobooks, read-alouds, favorites and rereads, and it's always yours to keep and export.
Years from now, you'll be glad you kept it.
Readnauts quietly turns everyday logging into a keepsake of your family's reading life, theirs to look back on long after any program or school year ends.
Year in Review
A shareable recap of the year: the most-read reader, books and pages, milestones reached and favorite books, month by month.
Reading timeline
Scroll back through every month, with the books each reader finished and the milestones they hit along the way.
Printable certificates
Celebrate a 100th book or a finished read-a-thon with an award you can print and pin to the fridge.
Read together, even across homes.
Set a goal: a summer of reading, a read-aloud month, a library haul. Every book logged moves everyone forward on a shared map. Invite cousins, close friends, even a whole class with a code, so you cheer each other on, never rank the kids.
Ben Mom Jack Invite with a code
Cousins across the country, a best friend, a whole class. They join your quest from their own Readnauts, and you choose who is in.
Everyone keeps their library
A quest is just a shared view. Each family's books stay theirs; only the reading totals are shared, never a private shelf.
Cheer, don't rank
Age-aware scoring moves everyone, from the 5-year-old to the grown-ups. It is built to inspire each other, not to put kids on a scoreboard.
See what's working, gently.
Readnauts notices patterns and momentum: who's on a roll, who could use a nudge, and simple next-book ideas like “more like this.”
He reads more when he can stay in a world he already knows, so keep the next one handy.
Short books are working. Keep the wins coming before leveling up.
A small Saturday library ritual could anchor the habit.
One nonfiction pick this week would add a little variety.
Family reading momentum
Books logged · last 7 weeks
Pick a world to read in.
Tap one to recolor the whole app (and this page). A small bit of magic kids love coming back to.
13 worlds in the app, each with light & dark. More on the way.
Built around how reading habits really form.
Readnauts leans on two simple, well-understood ideas, and stays out of the way of the reading itself.
Small, steady wins beat big distant goals
Habits stick when progress is frequent and attainable. Short books count, streaks are kind, and goals are broken into milestones you actually reach, so momentum keeps building instead of stalling.
Reading grows when families do it together
Children read more when the grown-ups around them read too, model it, and encourage rather than test. Readnauts is built for the whole household, parents and kids on the same shelf, and keeps reflection gentle, never a quiz.
These are guiding principles behind the design, not clinical claims. Readnauts is a tool to support your family's reading, not a substitute for it.
Already doing a library or school reading program?
Keep doing it. Library summer challenges and school reading programs are wonderful, and many are free. Readnauts is not here to replace them. It is the home record that holds it all, before, during, and long after.
Log your library program here too.
Track the summer reading challenge in Readnauts as you go, so those books count toward your family's own library and goals, not just the program.
Keep the memory after the program ends.
Programs finish and their logs disappear. The reading you did stays in Readnauts, year after year.
Print a log for school or the librarian.
A clean reading report for any date range, with a parent sign-off line, ready for a read-a-thon, a teacher, or homeschool records.
A gentle lock, just for the grown-ups.
Kids can read, explore and log freely. A grown-up PIN keeps the things that change family data (adding or deleting books, editing members) safely behind a tap, so nothing gets undone by accident.
You choose exactly what to protect. Changing worlds and exploring always stay open and fun.
Start with the habit. Grow into reflection.
Reading shouldn't feel like homework. Readnauts starts simple, then grows with your family, at your pace.
Just log it
Type a rough title. That's the whole habit to start.
Add a thought
One favorite part or a quick reaction. Optional, never required.
Talk about it
A light chat prompt for car rides and dinners, when you're ready.
Family book club
Easy, book-club-style conversations as your readers grow.
Start your family's reading library.
Log the reading you already do, celebrate every reader fairly, and keep the habit going, together. Start with a 14-day free trial, no card.
References
- Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development. Harvard University Press. ↩
- Jeynes, W. (2005; 2007). Meta-analyses of parental involvement and academic achievement. Urban Education. ↩
- Bus, A. G., van IJzendoorn, M. H., & Pellegrini, A. D. (1995). Joint book reading makes for success in learning to read. Review of Educational Research, 65(1). ↩
- OECD (2012). Let's Read Them a Story! The Parent Factor in Education (PISA). ↩
- Becker, M., McElvany, N., & Kortenbruck, M. (2010). Journal of Educational Psychology, 102(4); and Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). Psychological Bulletin, 125(6). ↩
- U.S. Government Accountability Office (2010). Students Who Change Schools Frequently (GAO-11-40). ↩