While affective outcomes are generally positive for the use of eBooks and computer-based reading tutors in teaching children to read, learning outcomes are often poorer (Korat and Shamir, 2004). We describe the first iteration of Reading Kitty, an iOS application that uses NLP and speech processing to focus children’s time on close reading and prosody in oral reading, while maintaining an emphasis on creativity and artifact creation. We also share preliminary results demonstrating that pitch range can be used to automatically predict readers’ skill level.