Trusted by parents. Recommended by experts.

A free, fun, fast start to read activity for 3 to 5-year-olds

Help your child develop essential early reading skills

and Play Roly for two-minutes daily, have fun, and boost confidence

Kids love Play Roly, a free, at-home early reading activity recommended by experts and founded on science of reading research. Play Roly’s short parent-friendly videos help your 3 to 5-year-old child learn the essential first steps to reading that as many as one in four children cannot grasp in a classroom setting. 

 

Bring Roly to life by drawing a face on any ball, roll Roly back and forth, and sing along to Roly’s musical language of letter-sound videos. Play Roly will delight, inspire confidence, and introduce the joy of reading to your young learner.

Play Roly early learning activity

Phonemic Awareness

Make Roly and sing-along

(6 videos)

Play Roly 3

Choose Roly’s sounds

(1 video)

Letter Names and Sounds

Play Roly 4

Sing the alphabet song with Roly

(1 video)

Play Roly - 5

What do the letters say?

(6 videos)

Play Roly - 6

Read with Roly’s letter sounds

(6 videos)

What every mom needs to know about how kids learn to read

Read what the experts say about how, as a parent, you can help your child learn foundational early reading skills while having fun one-on-one time together. Give your child the confidence and skills critical for reading that, when neglected, can become a learning barrier.

Eliminate common barriers to kids learning to read

Learning to hear individual letter sounds in words, blend them, and associate letters with sounds are developmental milestones essential to kids learning to read. Learning these skills in a classroom setting can be challenging for about 25% of children and delay reading.

What to expect

Founded on the science of reading and supported by learning experts

Play Roly Board Member Dr. Linda Seigel

Dr. Linda Siegel

Dr. Linda Siegel, distinguished scholar, internationally recognized as an authority in the field of reading research and learning disabilities in children, is a strong supporter of Play Roly. 

 

“Because Play Roly teaches children the essential first steps to read at the optimal age of 3 to 5 years, and is founded on the science of reading research, it works. I’ve been privileged to watch children experience the joy of learning to read at their own pace, by playing the Play Roly videos, having fun, and spending quality one-on-one time with a parent,” says Dr. Siegel.

Recommended by experts

Got questions?

Before we can take the first step to read we must learn the foundations of reading. This includes learning to hear individual letter sounds in words, blend them, and associate letters with sounds. When kids Play Roly, they develop age-appropriate skills critical for reading that, when neglected, become a common learning barrier. In under an hour, at their own pace, kids start to learn to read.

Most kids learn Roly’s language—verbal blending of Roly’s three-letter sounds into a word—anywhere between five and 20 minutes and complete all the videos in an hour; however, this will be spread out over a few weeks. The activity is played daily in short sing-along video sessions of under two-minutes. By signing up for Play Roly’s free app, you’ll be guided through each activity at your child’s own pace—and when you finish, Roly will send your child a personalized certificate of completion!

We recommend engaging your child in playing Roly daily if possible. However, if this is not possible, once or twice a week is enough to see your child start to learn the essential first steps to read. Often children have so much fun with Roly, they’ll remind you it’s time to play.

What moms say
“My son knew he was learning but he was excited to do it each day and since it was a short exercise, it didn’t overwhelm him. I call that playful learning!”
What teachers say
“Play Roly is bang on. I share it with my class parents and really enjoy seeing the progress the children make when they Play Roy at home and participate in class early reading activities—the one-on-one practice at home really makes a difference. Parents find it easy. Kids love Roly, and while they’re learning the necessary skills needed to start reading, they also have fun .”
What the experts say
“The alphabet song is important because it teaches the child the names of twenty-six categories of objects. That proves useful as they gather data about their visual properties, sounds, and combinational statistics, solving the letter-recognition problem.”
What moms say
“After completing Play Roly 5, my daughter has a better understanding that letters make certain sounds, and he has started to identify some letter sounds now. He also has begun to understand the process of sounding out letters to form a word.”
What the experts say
“When children discover a critical fact, that letters correspond to sounds that make up spoken words, their approach to both reading and spelling shifts.”
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Play Roly Stories

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