A daily paper for children

A newspaper for the child who asks why.

Every morning a curator picks the day's news and has each story retold at your child's reading level. It is waiting when they open it — a newspaper set for a screen, not a photograph of a page. Print it and the same day folds into a four-page paper instead.

Curated by a person, dailyReads on any screenFolds into one sheet

Read it at:

The same story, the same day. Level 1 is plainer; Level 2 is fuller.

Two forms, one paper

Read it on a screen. Or fold it into a newspaper.

Same edition, same words, same morning — and neither form is a second-class version of the other. Most days a child reads it on whatever is to hand. Some days it wants to be on the table at breakfast, and a classroom wants thirty of them.

On screen

Animal World

India counts its tigers with hidden cameras — and finds more of them

Every four years India carries out a national tiger census, much of it using camera traps — motion-triggered cameras left in the forest.

  • Text that reflows and resizes. Not a picture of a page, so it is selectable and a screen reader can read it aloud.
  • A contents rail, the way a front page has always had an index — so a child can see how much paper there is and go straight to the animals.
  • A progress line along the top, because knowing where you are in something is half of finishing it.

On paper

Animal World

India counts its tigers with hidden cameras — and finds more of them

Every four years India carries out a national tiger census, much of it using camera traps — motion-triggered cameras left in the forest.

  • One sheet of A4, printed both sides. Fold it once down the middle and it reads front to back like a real paper.
  • Grayscale by default, because the machine in a staffroom is almost always mono and a colour proof that prints grey is a wasted morning.
  • Nothing to install, no battery, and it can be left somewhere a child will pick it up.
Page 4 · back

Did you know?

The heaviest thing a bird has ever carried

Sport

Why a cricket ball swings in the air

Read next — the books
Words of the day
Page 1 · front

The Daily Why

Animal World

India counts its tigers with hidden cameras

Science & Technology

The telescope that photographs the whole sky

Side AThe back page and the front page, side by side. This is the side that faces out.
Page 2

Kashmir to Kanyakumari

A new bridge opens over the Chenab

Namma Bengaluru

The lake that came back

Page 3

Our Planet

Why this monsoon arrived nine days late

How Things Work

Inside the machine that prints this paper

Side BPages two and three, which become the inside spread once it is folded.

The printed form, laid out. Pages two and three carry the sections your child chose, so two children in the same house get papers that share the day's news and differ after it — and the back page collects the trivia, the words of the day, and the books each story opens.

One edition, many papers

The same day. A different paper for each child.

One edition is curated each morning, and what each child gets is chosen out of it — their sections leading, at their reading level, with their name on the nameplate. Including three words from that morning's stories, glossed in the language spoken at home.

orbit

noun · verb

The curved path one object takes around another in space.

Hindi
कक्षा
Kannada
ಕಕ್ಷೆ

habitat

noun

The place where an animal or plant naturally lives.

Hindi
आवास
Kannada
ಆವಾಸ

glacier

noun

A river of ice, moving so slowly you cannot see it move.

Hindi
हिमनद
Kannada
ಹಿಮನದಿ

Where a question leads

Every question opens a book.

The news is the doorway, not the destination. Every story ends with questions worth asking, and each one is paired with a book that goes further. A child who finishes an article has finished four hundred words; a child who follows a question has started a book.

Animal World

India counts its tigers with hidden cameras — and finds more of them

From this morning's front page

How does a camera know what it is looking at?

Read next

The Way Things Work Now David Macaulay

Why does every tiger wear a different set of stripes?

Read next

Animalium Katie Scott & Jenny Broom

What happens to a forest once its biggest hunter is gone?

Read next

A Wild Child’s Guide to Endangered Animals Millie Marotta

One story, three directions — engineering, biology, the shape of a whole ecosystem. None of them is the “right” one. A child follows whichever question was already in their head, which is the only kind of reading that sticks.

How the paper is made

Six steps, every morning, before the day starts.

  1. 01

    Fetch

    The day's news is gathered across twelve subjects — the world, India, Bengaluru, and the sections each child follows.

  2. 02

    Choose

    A curator reads and decides what goes in. Nothing reaches a child that a person has not chosen.

  3. 03

    Retell

    Each story is rewritten twice — once plainly, once with fuller detail — then checked that the two really do differ.

  4. 04

    Ask

    Each story is read a second time, for the questions it leaves behind — the ones a child would actually ask out loud, not the ones with an answer in the article.

  5. 05

    Open

    Every question is paired with a book that takes it further, chosen by hand and matched to the level your child reads at.

  6. 06

    Read

    The curator reads the finished paper end to end before it goes out. Every source is credited on the page.

Two ways in

One paper for a family. Or one for every pupil in the school.

The paper is the same. What changes is whose name is on the front of it.

Families

A paper of their own, every morning.

For one child or four. Each gets their own name on the masthead and their own set of sections.

  1. Sign in with your phone. A number and a one-time code — no password to forget.
  2. Add your reader. Their name and what they are into. Pick a reading level, or start on Level 1 and change it once you have both seen a paper.
  3. Open it tomorrow morning. Their paper is already there. You never make it and there is no button to press — it is built the moment someone asks for it, so a child who is not reading generates nothing.
Start reading Children never sign in. They are readers, not accounts — the login is yours.

Schools

Your masthead on every desk.

The school's name and logo sit at the top of the front page. Ours moves to a single line at the foot.

  1. Tell us about your school. We set schools up by hand, so the first step is a conversation rather than a sign-up form.
  2. Add your classrooms. A paper for every pupil with their own name on it, or one class set per reading level — grayscale, ready for the staffroom machine.
  3. Invite the parents. Each pupil gets a single-use code. A parent who enters it can read their own child's paper, and only theirs.

A decision we will not trade away

The reading level is never printed on the front.

A child holding a sheet stamped Level 1 beside a friend's Level 2 has been publicly graded on the one object meant to make them want to read. Staff tell the two stacks apart by a small mark at the foot of the sheet and by the filename. Children never see it.

Questions

The things people ask first.

Will my child be able to read it?

Every story comes at two reading levels — Level 1 is plainer, Level 2 fuller. Pick either when you add your reader, and change it once you have both seen a paper. Nothing on the page tells them which one they are reading.

How does it reach us?

It doesn't have to. Open it and today's paper is there — it is made the moment somebody asks for it, which means nothing is generated for a child who isn't reading, and there is no hour of the morning to argue about.

Where does the news come from?

Kid-safe reporting from around the world, across India and from Bengaluru, plus the sections your child follows. Every story names its source on the page.

Do we need a printer?

No. The reader is where most of it is read — text that reflows, at whatever size suits. Printing is for the mornings you want it on the table, and for a school running off a set for the class.

Does my child need an account?

No, and they cannot have one. Children are readers, not users — there is nothing for them to log into, and no way for anyone to reach them through it. Grown-ups on the account can read every paper; only children get one of their own.

Who chooses the books?

The same curator who chooses the news, by hand, matched to the level your child reads at. And nobody has to read them: a child who wonders about something and stops there has had the best part of it already.

It starts with the news. It ends with a bookshelf.

Add a reader tonight. Tomorrow morning their paper is waiting, with their name on it and the first questions worth chasing.