For parents
How A New Page compares to other reading apps
There are a lot of reading apps, and many are good. Here is an honest look at what makes A New Page different, and who each kind of program is really best for, so you can choose well for your child.
The short version: most reading apps are games that teach some phonics. A New Page is a full structured-literacy program where the child reads a real story that only moves when they read it, set to their exact level, built for ages 3 to 18 including older struggling readers.
What makes A New Page different
These are the things that are genuinely hard to find anywhere else.
- ✓The story only moves when your child reads itThe reading is not a reward you unlock after a game. The reading is the point. A story engine writes every line at your child's exact level, so they can truly decode it, and the adventure advances because they read it.
- ✓Every line is fully decodableYour child only ever meets words built from sounds they have already been taught. No guessing from pictures, no words they cannot sound out. That is the difference between learning to read and learning to guess.
- ✓Set to their exact step, not their gradeA free check places your child at their precise spot in the sequence, then the program starts a little easy on purpose so the first weeks are wins.
- ✓Built for older readers too, with dignityA New Page gives ages 11 to 18 age-respecting adventures and a track of their own, set at their real reading level.
- ✓Built on the actual scienceStructured Literacy, aligned with the International Dyslexia Association's Knowledge and Practice Standards, with reading-fluency tracking on the national norms schools use. Many apps teach phonics; far fewer are built to this standard.
- ✓Dyslexia-friendly by defaultThe whole app uses a clear, readable font and wider letter and word spacing for every reader, built in, which many find far easier on the eyes.
- ✓A weekly report you can hand a teacherPlain-English progress built from real sessions, printable for a teacher or an IEP team. Most consumer apps give you points, not documentation.
- ✓One price for the whole family39 dollars a month covers every child in your home, not per child.
The honest landscape
Where the popular options fit, and where they do not.
Game-first early-reading apps (for example Reading Eggs, ABCmouse)
Bright, fun, and motivating for young new readers. The reading is usually a small part wrapped in a lot of game, and the path is built around grade and age more than a child's exact decoding step.
Best for: a young child who is roughly on track and just needs engaging practice.
Dyslexia-focused programs (for example Nessy)
Genuinely built with dyslexia in mind, with structured lessons and games. A strong option. A New Page differs by making the decodable story itself the practice, placing at the exact step, and carrying the same approach all the way up through older teen readers.
Best for: families who want a lesson-and-game format and like that approach.
School intervention platforms (for example Lexia Core5)
The school-market standard, with genuinely strong efficacy evidence, and specialists have watched it help real kids. It is built for school: the child works alone on a screen, teachers read the dashboards, and home access runs through a reseller at roughly 175 dollars per child per year. A New Page differs by design, not by claim: a parent in the loop every night, practice inside a real story, and one family price that covers every reader in the house.
Best for: school-day intervention blocks, and a fine thing to have at school while your family reads together at home.
Early phonics programs (for example Hooked on Phonics, Reading.com)
Solid, explicit phonics for beginning readers, often parent-led. Usually aimed at the younger end and at getting started, with less for an older child who is years behind or for adapting to exactly where a struggler stalls.
Best for: a typical young child taking their first steps into reading.
Parent-led Orton-Gillingham curricula (for example Barton, All About Reading)
Excellent and rigorous, genuinely. These are serious structured-literacy curricula, and families who run them well get real results. The differences are practical: they ask you to learn the method, prep each lesson, and pace the sequence yourself, the practice text lives in workbooks and readers rather than a living story built at the exact step your child is on tonight, and levels are typically purchased per child. A New Page does the prep and pacing for you, writes the story at the exact step, and one price covers every child in the house. And we work well alongside them: plenty of families keep their curriculum as the formal lesson and use us as the nightly practice that makes it stick.
Best for: a parent with the time to teach a full curriculum themselves, and a great pairing with us for the daily reading.
A private reading specialist or tutor
The gold standard for a severe case, and irreplaceable for one-to-one diagnosis and intensive intervention. It also runs 80 to 250 dollars a session, once or twice a week, and the daily practice between sessions is on you.
Best for: a severe difficulty, ideally alongside a daily home program like ours. See what a specialist does.
When something else is the better choice
If your child is already a confident reader who just wants more books, a library card and a leveled-reader app may be all you need.
If your child has a severe reading disability, think of us as the daily engine that works alongside a specialist, not a full replacement for one. And we are a teaching program, not a diagnosis. If you want to know whether your child has dyslexia, a formal evaluation by a qualified professional is the right step, and we will point you to one.
Find your child's exact level, free →
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Is the school the daily fight too? Our team also runs A New Story, free special-education tools and advocacy help.