Reading time becomes screen time
The app measures how long the child actually reads and works out an amount of time from it. Parents see the total in Parent Mode.
A reading app for kids who are just starting to read on their own
The child reads aloud.
The story listens.
Rimdal has 16 short stories and 8 picture books in English, and more in Swedish. Your child reads one out loud, and the app follows along, word by word, as they go. No corrections, no points for right answers — just a story that keeps going.
- No account
- No ads
- No tracking
Oscar could not find his soccer cleat.
This is the app's reading screen. Each word lights up as your child reads it — no red marks, no score.
How it works
Three steps, and then the child is inside the story
The whole experience is built from the child's point of view. There is no login to get past and no placement test to pass first.
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Pick a story
Stories are sorted by how hard they are to read, and the first suggestions follow the child's age. The level is a suggestion rather than a lock — a child may read whatever they like.
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Read it out loud
Sigel, a small snail, travels along the line. Each word lights up as your child reads it. If the child gets stuck, Sigel can show the whole word — and then it counts as dealt with, because the child actively did something about it.
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The page turns
When no word is left, the next spread opens. No score in between, no "3 out of 5 correct". Just the next part of the story.
The stories
Real stories — not word lists with pictures on them
What the child reads is a story with a beginning, a problem and an end, rather than loose words to drill. That is the difference between practicing and wanting to know how it turns out.
Some of the stories
- The Cleat in the Hedge
- The Drawing on the Fence
- A Place Just Right
- What the Tide Brought
- The Rocket That Was a Box
- The Spell That Went Sideways
- Lucy and the Empty Page
- Henry and the Narrow Ledge
The short stories were written in English. The picture books are English versions of our Swedish books. Nothing is generated on the fly.
And the books, with a picture on every page In the app
Alongside the short stories, the app has longer picture books, told in chapters, where every page has a picture of its own. One of them is about a hedgehog who needs dry leaves before winter comes. Here are four of its pictures.
Four pictures from the book — a hedgehog, a mouse and the leaves.
The first book we drew, What Shone in the Snow, is still in production and not in the app yet. Here are a few spreads from it, in an earlier style.
Spreads from What Shone in the Snow — a girl and the light she finds in the snow.
Reading and screen time
Screen time is the reason to start. The story is the reason to keep going.
We do not think a reading app beats everything else on a phone by being healthier. So Rimdal makes a trade a child understands immediately — and one that the parent sets the terms of.
You set the ceiling
There is a daily cap, and it belongs to the parent. A child should not be able to read their way to three hours of gaming in one morning.
A slow day still counts
Children read at different speeds. From five minutes of reading in a day, reading earns time, so a slow day counts too.
Never paid for right answers
The time grows with the minutes the child reads — never with how many words came out right. Mistakes are used to pick stories at the right level, never as a penalty.
What the app does not do — said plainly
Rimdal does not lock other apps and does not switch the phone off. It works out an amount of time and shows it. Turning that into practice is your agreement at home, not something the app takes over.
We say this up front because several apps on the same shelf promise the opposite. Rimdal keeps an honest account of the reading; the bargain itself is between you and your child.
For parents
A parent mode that shows what happened — not what the child is
Reading development cannot be read off in a week, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Parent Mode shows a habit signal: that reading is happening, how often, and for how long.
- Freedom overview
- Earned by reading, available now, and a manual adjustment if you want to change something by hand.
- Daily goal
- The most screen time reading can add up to in one day, per child. You set it.
- The week's reading
- How many of seven days were read — and whether that is more, fewer or about the same as last week.
- Several children
- Each child has their own stories, their own level and their own time — and you can see how many days in a row they have read.
- The microphone
- A switch called Allow the app to listen. Turn it off and the app stops listening — even if the phone would still let it.
Privacy
The short version, and then the whole text
The privacy policy is written against a reading of the code rather than against a template. This is the short version. The full policy is on its own page, in English; the Swedish original is the one that legally applies.
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No server, no account
Everything the app saves stays on the phone.
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No ads, no tracking
No analytics and no third-party tools inside the app.
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The voice goes to Apple — and is not kept
When a child reads out loud, the audio may be sent to Apple's speech recognition to be turned into text. Rimdal keeps neither the audio nor the text. What remains afterwards is numbers: how many words, how long, how far into the story.
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The microphone is optional
Consent is given by a parent and can be withdrawn at any time. The child can carry on reading without the microphone — and then nothing leaves the device. Without the microphone no screen time is recorded, because the app cannot hear that reading is happening.
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Deletion that is real
Parent Mode has a delete function: remove one child, or everything the app has saved. We hold no copy anywhere else.
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No location, camera or contacts
The app does not ask for them, and does not use them.
Common questions
What you are likely wondering
Can we use the app in English?
Yes. Each child has a reading language — English or Swedish — and sees only the stories in that language. The app opens in English, you choose its language when you set it up, and you can change it later in Parent Mode. Speech recognition listens for American English.
Who is it for?
Children who have started sounding out words and reading on their own. The app asks for the child's age once, and uses it only to choose which stories are suggested first. The level can be changed at any time.
Does the child have to read out loud?
No. The app works without the microphone and the child can read silently. The difference is that the app then cannot hear that reading is happening, and so records no screen time for that session.
Does the app correct the child?
No. There is nothing red, no tick and no score. Each word lights up as your child reads it. If the child gets stuck, Sigel can show the whole word and the reading moves on. Mistakes are used only to choose suitably difficult stories later.
Can a child cheat their way to screen time?
Time is counted from active reading rather than from the app being open, and the daily cap is yours to set. We do not promise a cheat-proof system — we promise that the accounting is honest and that the ceiling is yours.
Does the app switch off Roblox or YouTube when the time is up?
No. Rimdal works out an amount of time and displays it — it does not control anything else on the phone. How the earned time is used is your agreement at home.
What happens to the child's voice?
The audio may go to Apple and become text there. Rimdal keeps neither the audio nor the text. What Apple in turn does with the audio is Apple's processing, described in Apple's own text on Siri and Dictation.
What does it cost?
The price is on the app's page in the App Store.
Is there an Android version?
Not now. The first version is built for iPhone.
Can I add our own books?
Not in this version. The feature is started but not active, so no books are created in the app. We mention it so you know what is on the way — not as something you can use today.
There is a story waiting to be read out loud
Rimdal for iPhone. No account, no ads, no tracking.
Questions — get in touch.