TaleBud

Overview

TaleBud is a bilingual (Spanish/English) AI learning portal for children that transforms a kid's spoken idea into a personalized, illustrated story — then coaches them through reading it aloud. Built as an MVP prototype with Next.js 15 and React 19, it targets early readers aged 4–10 and their parents.

How it works

1. Idea input — The child speaks, types, or selects a story theme. No reading required to start.
2. AI story generation — A backend route (/api/story) calls the Groq API (Llama 3.3-70B) to produce an age-adapted narrative with illustrated panels via Pollinations (free, no key needed).
3. Read-along session — Web Speech API narrates the story word-by-word with highlighting. The child then reads aloud; the STT engine scores accuracy, awards XP stars, badges, and streaks.
4. Parent dashboard — Progress metrics (minutes read, words, accuracy, level) stored in localStorage, with optional Supabase-backed story sharing.

Use cases

• Emergent readers practising phonics through stories they authored themselves.
• Bilingual families using the separate app-language / story-language toggle to introduce English naturally.
• Gamified homework alternative — quiz-based maths games and decision-branch narratives keep kids engaged beyond passive screen time.
• Parental oversight — no open chat, no ads, COPPA-aligned design with a dedicated parent panel for monitoring real learning progress.