Support

Most questions are answered below. If yours isn't, email [email protected] and a real person (Jason) will write back, usually within a day.

How a session works

On the Play tab, pick your child's age and how many minutes this session gets (2 to 20).
Set a four-digit parent PIN the first time. The Start button turns on once a PIN is set.
Hand the phone over. The sun at the top slides down as time passes.
Two minutes before the end, a quiet "Two more minutes" banner appears and the voice says so.
When time is up, the screen changes to a moon and "All done." Nothing on it leads anywhere.

Leaving early, or starting again: hold the lock button in the corner for two seconds, then enter your PIN. The same lock is on the all-done screen.

Forgot your PIN? Let the timer run out, then close the app fully (swipe up and flick it away) and open it again. It opens on the setup screen, where you can type a new PIN. Nothing else is lost.

Keeping your child inside the app (Guided Access)

No app can lock the home button; that belongs to the phone. Apple's Guided Access does it, and it takes one minute to set up:

Open Settings → Accessibility → Guided Access and turn it on. Set a passcode.
Open Little Lessons and triple-click the side button (or home button on older phones). Tap Start.
The phone now stays in Little Lessons. To leave, triple-click again and enter your Guided Access passcode.

Adding the free web version to your home screen

The web try-it runs in Safari with no install. To make it open full screen like an app:

Open littlelessonsapp.com/app in Safari on your iPhone.
Tap the Share button (the square with an arrow), then Add to Home Screen, then Add.

The web version needs an internet connection and keeps its settings in the browser. The App Store version works offline and includes everything.

Sound

If the voice is silent, check the ring/silent switch on the side of the phone and the volume. On the free web version, the voice streams from our site, so it needs a connection the first time each line plays.

Refunds

Purchases go through Apple, so refunds do too. Go to reportaproblem.apple.com, sign in with the Apple Account that bought the app, find Little Lessons and choose Request a refund. Apple usually answers within a day or two. If something in the app isn't working, email first and I'll try to fix it.

Privacy

The app has no account, no analytics and no ads, and sends nothing anywhere. The whole privacy policy fits on one page.

The research behind it

The three ideas on the home page come from these, all public:

Hirsh-Pasek, Zosh et al., Putting Education in "Educational" Apps, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2015: the four pillars of an app that teaches (active, engaged, meaningful, socially interactive).
Troseth et al., on the "video deficit": toddlers learn less from a screen than from the same thing in person, and a responsive adult closes much of the gap.
Romeo et al. 2018 (MIT): back-and-forth conversational turns with an adult predicted children's language development better than the number of words heard.
Kuhl, Tsao & Liu 2003: nine-month-olds learned foreign speech sounds from a live person and not from the same lessons on video.
World Health Organization guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep for children under 5 (2019), and the American Academy of Pediatrics media guidance: short, bounded, and together.

Contact

Jason Abraham · [email protected]