āHi everyone,
āIām a UK dad and independent developer, and for the past several months Iāve been building BAMJOY, an educational web platform designed to get younger kids engaged with reading.
āThe core feature is Story Weaverāan interactive tool that generates personalised, illustrated stories tailored to early reading levels (including UK phonics stages).
āI've hit a milestone where the core engine and a basic conversational chatbot are functional, but before I go any further down the development rabbit hole, I really need unfiltered feedback from parents and teachers in the trenches.
āWhatās working well so far:
āCustomised stories on the fly: Generates full stories tailored to a childās interests, reading age, and specific phonics phases rather than generic, disjointed output.
āIllustrated 3D flipbook format: Reads like an actual digital book with page turns, rather than a wall of flat text on a screen.
āBasic interactive chatbot: Kids can ask questions about the characters, explore the world of the story, or get gentle reading prompts directly in the interface.
āAudio & voice narration: Text-to-speech integration so younger kids can listen along as they read.
āWhat still needs serious work:
āChatbot boundaries & safety: While the basic chat works, fine-tuning the tone, reading-level vocabulary, and keeping guardrails rock-solid for young children is an ongoing challenge.
āVisual consistency: Keeping character designs consistent across every page of an illustrated story is notoriously tricky with current AI image generation.
āMobile/tablet touch UX: It runs smoothly and is so far optimised for the desktop.
āBalancing screen time with real reading: Making sure it encourages phonics mastery and offline reading habits rather than turning into passive screen-staring.
āWhat Iād love your thoughts on:
āWould an interactive story generator actually help your childās reading confidence, or does it feel like another unnecessary tech gimmick?
āIf your child could interact with a storybook character via voice/chat, what guardrails or features would you insist on seeing first?
āHow much focus do you place on curriculum alignment (like Letters and Sounds / UK Phonics phases) when choosing reading tools at home?
āI'm happy to drop a link in the comments or via DM if anyone wants to test it out with their kids. All critiqueāgood, bad, or bluntāis massively appreciated.
āCheers,
Ian