Storytime: Truth and Tales

Give your child stronger focus, more creativity, more empathy and better ways to handle big feelings, the abilities that help children learn and get along with others. In Truth and Tales, children ages 4 to 8 build them through play: interactive Teaching Stories, audiobooks with human narration, read-along, coloring and movement. Research-based and made with neuroscientists and educators. No ads, and no data collected from children.

Used by 100,000+ families and educators worldwide.

WHAT YOUR CHILD GAINS

- Focus: stories that hold attention without flashing rewards, timers or autoplay
- Creativity: characters solve problems in unexpected ways, showing your child there is more than one way to see a situation
- Empathy: open questions after each story invite your child to imagine how others think and feel
- Handling big feelings: your child practices noticing what they feel and choosing what to do next, the ability educators call self-regulation
- Flexible and critical thinking: puzzles and choices that reward a fresh look, not a memorized answer

WHAT YOUR CHILD PLAYS

- Interactive Teaching Stories: narrative games with choices and puzzles, followed by questions with no single right answer
- Audiobooks: professional human narration, never AI-generated, for bedtime and car rides (works offline)
- Read-along: words highlighted as they are spoken, a support for children learning to read
- Artist's Gallery: coloring inspired by the stories
- Move It Move It: body movement inspired by yoga and tai chi

WHY TEACHING STORIES

Teaching Stories are traditional tales shared across cultures for over a thousand years, particularly from Central Asia and the Middle East. Unlike fables that teach what to think, or behavioral stories that model what to do, Teaching Stories develop how children think by presenting characters who solve challenges through unexpected solutions. Our approach draws on decades of work by Robert Ornstein, Idries Shah, Arthur Deikman, Doris Lessing, Georgi Lozanov and Paul Zak, and Truth and Tales is designed with doctors, educators and neuroscientists.

LEARNING THROUGH PLAY, NOT POINTS

No points, badges or streaks: the story itself is the game, and nothing autoplays. Research shows external rewards can reduce intrinsic motivation over time (Deci et al., 1999), so here your child plays because the story is worth playing.

FOR TEACHERS

Educator logins and individual child access codes, with no child accounts or personal data. Pedagogical guides for every activity; one device per child, in pairs or as a whole class. Addresses all five CASEL competencies.

QUESTIONS FAMILIES ASK

What will my child develop?
Attention, creativity, empathy, emotional intelligence, cognitive flexibility and critical thinking. Research on social-emotional learning reports 11 to 13 percentile-point academic gains (Durlak et al., 2011). That describes the research field, not measured results for this app.

Is it free?
Several stories and activities are free. A subscription opens everything, starts with a free trial and can be cancelled anytime in your App Store settings. No ads either way.

Does my child need to read?
No. Every instruction is narrated, so a four-year-old can start before reading and grow into the text.

Does it work with a screen reader?
Yes. Screens, menus and controls have spoken labels for VoiceOver on iPhone and iPad, plus dyslexia-friendly fonts, a color-blind accessible palette and simple controls for reduced mobility. Artwork tapped inside a story scene is not described yet.

Is it safe?
Ad-free, no data collected from children, and the grown-ups' area sits behind a parental gate. Compliant with COPPA, GDPR, the UK Children's Code, LGPD and PIPEDA. Privacy policy and support at truthandtales.app.

Mom's Choice Gold Award | GESAwards 2025 Winner | Apple "Kids We Love" and "App of the Day" | BIG Festival Impact Educational Award