Reading room
Articles
We publish books and games for children, which means we spend a lot of time thinking about the twenty minutes before bed, the argument in the back of the car, and the plate of fruit nobody touched. These are the notes.
No top-ten lists and no miracle fixes. Mostly they are about doing a small thing consistently instead of a big thing occasionally, which is unglamorous advice and happens to be the kind that works.
- Reading together 5 min read
How to read a picture book out loud when you have nothing left
Read-aloud advice usually assumes an adult with energy. Here is what actually works at the end of a long day.
Read it - Raising readers 6 min read
Teaching a five-year-old empathy without giving them a lecture
"How would you feel if someone did that to you?" is the right idea asked at the worst possible moment. Here is what to do instead.
Read it - Feelings 6 min read
What to say when a child says "I'm bad at everything"
The instinct is to argue them out of it. There is a better opening move, and it starts with not contradicting them.
Read it - Healthy habits 5 min read
Getting a cautious child to try fruit: what actually helps
Pressure backfires, bribery backfires harder. What tends to work is slower and considerably less satisfying.
Read it - Behind the studio 5 min read
Why our games run in the browser, and why that matters on a school Chromebook
No installs, no accounts, no app store. A short explanation of what HTML5 games are and what they let a family avoid.
Read it - Raising readers 6 min read
When a child asks about difference — loudly, in a supermarket
Small children notice difference early and ask about it at full volume. What you say in that moment matters less than whether you say anything at all.
Read it - English learners 6 min read
Idioms are the last thing a learner gets, and the first thing they hear
A child can know every word in a sentence and still have no idea what it means. That is not a vocabulary problem, and vocabulary practice will not fix it.
Read it - English learners 6 min read
The silent period: when a child learning English stops speaking
A child who was chatty in their first language goes quiet for weeks. Nothing has gone wrong, and pushing them to talk makes it last longer.
Read it - English learners 6 min read
Reading aloud to a child who does not have the words yet
The instinct is to simplify, translate and check. All three make the session shorter and the learning smaller.
Read it - English learners 5 min read
How to choose a picture book for a child learning English
Reading level is the least useful thing on the cover. Four other things matter more, and one of them rules out most of the shelf.
Read it - English learners 6 min read
The grammar hiding in a bedtime story
A learner will meet a structure forty times in a book they love and once in the lesson about it. Only one of those is doing anything.
Read it - English learners 5 min read
Teaching comparatives without teaching grammar
Bigger, smaller, older, younger. The rule is simple, the exceptions are not, and neither is what a child needs first.
Read it - Screens and AI 5 min read
When the homework is done but nothing was learned
Finished, correct, and completely hollow. How to spot work a child has passed through rather than done — and what to say about it.
Read it - Reading together 5 min read
Reading aloud to two children at once, when they are years apart
One is three and wants the flap book. One is seven and is insulted by it. You have twenty minutes and one lap.
Read it - Raising readers 5 min read
The bedtime stall: one more book, one more drink, one more question
The stall is not really about the book. Knowing what it is about makes it much shorter.
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