Kia ora, welcome to Chirp
Chirp is a calm, dual-mode reading app built for Aotearoa tamariki. It supports two complementary paths to literacy: gestalt language processing for whole-phrase, receptive learners, and structured phonics aligned to the NZ Phonics Plus phases — Kākano, Tupu, Māhuri and Rākau.
Two paths, one calm approach
Whole-phrase gestalt support
For learners who process language in whole phrases first, Chirp offers gentle, receptive-friendly activities that build meaning before breaking language down — honouring how gestalt language processors naturally learn.
NZ Phonics Plus
A structured, sequential phonics pathway aligned to the NZ Phonics Plus framework, helping learners build sound-letter knowledge and blending skills step by step.
The four stages
Every learner's journey through Chirp is organised into four calm, growth-themed stages.
Kākano
The seed stage — first sounds, letters and whole-phrase foundations.
Tupu
Growing confidence blending sounds and recognising familiar phrases.
Māhuri
A young tree — building fluency across longer words and sentences.
Rākau
A mature tree — independent, confident reading across contexts.
Built for Every Classroom, Tailored for Every Learner
Explicit Letter Formation & Articulation
A schematic mouth-shape guide and a simplified, progressively-revealed stroke path model how each sound and letter is formed — a guided visual aid, not a filmed handwriting exemplar.
Hyper-Personalized A–Z Interest Bridge
Adults can customise the word and picture behind any A–Z tile, connecting each letter to a learner's own interests — favourite characters, or local flora and fauna.
Custom Character & Sentence Builder
Mix personalised A–Z interest tiles with high-frequency words — including Heart Words — in a magnetic sentence strip, supporting gestalt phrase-building and early writing alongside parents.
Authentic en-NZ Audio
Phoneme and high-frequency word speech uses a fixed en-NZ locale at a calm 0.88 rate and 1.15 pitch. Actual voice and accent depend on the browser/device, and recordings are used only where available — we don't claim guaranteed accent precision or universal Kiwi vowel accuracy.
Low-Arousal, Sensory-Safe UI
Every child workspace control is at least 88px, palettes stay gentle and muted, and there are no timers, flashing, or distracting high-arousal animations anywhere in a learning session.
Privacy-Conscious Offline Support
Adult accounts, learner profiles, progress, A–Z tile customisations, saved A–Z Board Themes and sentence stories are stored under the owning licence and available across its devices. Optional pictures are uploaded only when an adult saves them. Chirp can continue with cached content and queue progress until reconnect, but offline access depends on what's already loaded.
Budget-Friendly Integration
Affordable licensing structured to fit alongside existing school software contracts without budget strain.
Curious about the pedagogy and privacy approach behind these features?
Sensory-safe by design
Chirp is built with a low-arousal, sensory-safe design: no flashing, no unexpected background audio or video, and no jarring animations — just a soft, warm colour palette. Audio only plays intentionally within a learning interaction (for example, a phoneme sound when an assessment prompt opens), never as unrelated background media. The whole experience is designed to feel calm and predictable for tamariki who need it most.