First English Day

For a four-year-old learning English, a lesson app full of menus is mostly menus. First English Day starts with the lesson itself. Tap Start, and the child hears a sentence, sees two pictures and picks one. On the first day that means sentences like "The girl is reading," with a girl reading in one picture and a boy drinking water in the other. Replay is always there, so a child can listen again before choosing.

Each day holds three prompts. The site's reasoning is that attention should stay on the sentence rather than the interface, and the five free starter days each have a small theme, from morning actions to home and play.

The child-facing side stays simple, while the parent side shows the structure. A course map lays out 300 levels and 4,500 listening questions, each with recorded English audio and a pair of pictures, so a parent can see where the practice is heading. There are practice notes for parent observations, and adding the site to a phone's home screen opens straight to the saved day.

Progress lives in the browser on that device. A parent account is optional and is used for continuity and paid access, saving only a minimal record of completed days.

The privacy policy is written with young children in mind. It says the starter practice doesn't require children to create accounts, submit forms or upload anything, and it asks parents not to enter a child's full name, school, photo or contact details. An optional follow-read replay requests microphone access only after a parent turns it on, and the policy says those recordings aren't saved anywhere.

The five-day starter is free. Paid access to the released course levels costs $9.90 a month, with a yearly option, or a one-time $199 for lifetime access, handled through Creem.