For parents of pre-readers, ages 3–6
A phonics tutor in your pocket.
Read Rocket teaches your child to read with the science-of-reading method real tutors use — step by step, sound by sound. $50 a month instead of $50 an hour.
14 days free, full access · No payment info to start · No ads · No data collected — ever
How a lesson works
Every lesson follows the same five steps — the same sequence a structured-literacy tutor would use.
- Step 1
Hear each sound
Tap a letter and hear its pure sound — "mmm", not "muh" — with a mouth animation showing how to make it.
- Step 2
Slide the comet to blend
Your child drags a comet under the letters. The sounds stretch, connect, and snap into a word. Blending is the moment reading “clicks.”
- Step 3
Read
First words, then real sentences, then decodable storybooks your child can read entirely on their own — no guessing from pictures.
- Step 4
Spell
Kids prove they own the word by building it back from its sounds. Spelling locks reading in.
- Step 5
Blast off
Stars, stickers, and a rocket launch. Short lessons, big finish — kids ask to come back tomorrow.
Built on the science of reading — not guessing games
Decades of reading research point to the same conclusion: children learn to read most reliably through systematic synthetic phonics — explicitly taught letter-sound relationships, blended into words, practiced in text that only uses what the child has been taught. It's the approach behind structured literacy and the one recommended by national reading panels and reading scientists.
Read Rocket follows that playbook strictly. Sounds are taught pure and in a research-informed order (continuous sounds like m, s, a first, because they're easiest to blend). Every word your child reads is fully decodable from sounds they already know. And every lesson pairs reading with spelling, because encoding is how the brain cements decoding.
No memorizing word shapes. No guessing from pictures. No videos to passively watch. Just the method that works, made delightful.
The journey: 12 units, from first sounds to first stories
Before Unit 1, kids master letter sounds and learn to blend two sounds together. Then the real flying starts. Each unit is a planet on the in-app star map.
- 1
Short a
First real words: cat, hat, map.
- 2
Short i
pig, sit, zip — the word list grows fast.
- 3
Short o
dog, fox, pop.
- 4
Short u
bug, sun, cup.
- 5
Short e & Reading
All five vowels down — and first full sentences!
- 6
Two Letters, One Sound
Digraphs: sh, ch, th, ck, ng.
- 7
Blends
flag, frog, swim — consonants team up.
- 8
Magic e
The silent e that turns cap into cape.
- 9
Vowel Teams
rain, boat, moon — vowels that work in pairs.
- 10
Bossy r
car, bird, corn — r changes everything.
- 11
Sound Surprises
The trickier patterns, taught gently.
- 12
Story Time
Real decodable storybooks, read all by themselves.
Every child gets their own animal buddy and moves at their own pace — the app never rushes and never shames a wrong answer.
Simple pricing. Serious value.
Read Rocket Pro — everything included
$49.99/month or $299.99/year (save 50%)
- 14 days completely free — full access from first launch
- No payment info required to start the trial
- The entire curriculum: every unit, story, and game
- Cancel anytime in your device Settings — no phone calls, no hoops
A structured-literacy tutor runs $50–$80 per hour. Read Rocket is the same method, every day, for less than the cost of one session a month.
🔒 Parental gate
Kids can't reach the subscribe button without an adult.
🛡️ Zero data collected
Progress lives on your iPad, nowhere else.
🚫 No ads, no accounts
No third-party anything.
Questions parents actually ask
What age is Read Rocket for?
Read Rocket is designed for pre-readers and beginning readers ages 3–6. A motivated 3-year-old can start with letter sounds; a 5- or 6-year-old who knows some letters can move quickly into blending and books. The app meets each child where they are and never rushes.
My child doesn't know any letters yet. Can they still start?
Yes — that's exactly where Read Rocket begins. The first units teach letter sounds from scratch with mouth cues and listening games, before any reading is asked of your child. Knowing zero letters on day one is the expected starting point.
How is this different from ABCmouse or other learning apps?
Most kids' apps are a buffet: a bit of everything, loosely ordered, heavy on videos and mini-games. Read Rocket does one thing — teaching your child to read — with a strict, research-based sequence: hear the sound, blend it, read it, spell it. There are no videos to passively watch and nothing to wander off into. Ten focused minutes in Read Rocket does more for reading than an hour of edutainment.
I feel guilty about screen time. Is this just more of it?
Fair question. Read Rocket is active, not passive — your child is sounding out, dragging, building, and reading the whole time, the way they would with a tutor. Lessons are short by design (about 10–15 minutes), there's no infinite scroll, no autoplay, and no ads pulling them elsewhere. It's the kind of screen time that ends with your child reading a real book to you.
My child shows signs of dyslexia. Will Read Rocket work for them?
Read Rocket uses systematic, explicit phonics — the same structured-literacy approach used in most evidence-based dyslexia interventions, with no guessing strategies anywhere in the app. Many children who struggle with reading do well with this kind of instruction. That said, Read Rocket is an educational app, not a diagnostic tool or therapy, and it isn't a substitute for evaluation by a specialist. If you suspect dyslexia, talk to your pediatrician or school — and use Read Rocket as consistent daily practice alongside professional guidance.
How long until my child is actually reading?
Every child is different, so we won't promise a date. As a rough shape: with 10–15 minutes a day, most children are blending their first words within a few weeks of starting the blending units, and reading short decodable sentences within a few months. The grown-ups area shows you exactly which sounds and words your child has mastered, so you're never guessing.
Why $49.99 a month?
Because the honest comparison isn't other apps — it's tutoring. A structured-literacy tutor costs $50–$80 per hour, once or twice a week. Read Rocket delivers the same method every single day for $49.99 a month ($299.99 a year), with 14 days free to see it working before you pay anything. If it's not for you, cancel in Settings in about ten seconds.
What data do you collect about my child?
None. Read Rocket has no accounts, no ads, no analytics, and no third-party SDKs. Your child's progress is stored on your iPad and never leaves it. The App Store privacy label is “Data Not Collected” — and we intend to keep it that way.
What devices does it run on? Does it need the internet?
Read Rocket is built for iPad (it also runs on iPhone, but the experience is designed around a tablet in a child's hands). After download it works fully offline — no Wi-Fi needed in the back of the car. The subscription is handled by Apple through your existing Apple ID.
Ready for liftoff?
14 days free. Full access. Cancel anytime during the trial — pay nothing.