StepRead - Read English Books
Learn words first, then read
Free · Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.
Reading English books means endless dictionary lookups? Learn the words first, then read. Fewer lookups each time — until the day you don’t need us.
StepRead
Start with an English book you can barely read. Gradually put the dictionary away. Until you can read English books on your own.
◆ Why do you need StepRead?
It happens to so many of us.
You buy an English book. You open the first page, full of hope.
Then you realize — almost every sentence has words you don’t know.
Look up a word, read two or three more, look up another. What you just understood is gone by the next sentence.
Reading a book turns into an endless session with the dictionary.
In the end, you put the book down.
StepRead exists to carry you through this hardest part.
◆ Reading English books isn’t about memorizing vocabulary
If you can already read English books fluently, you don’t need a language-learning app.
You just need a comfortable reader.
Kindle, Apple Books, even a paper book — any of them will do.
StepRead belongs to the stage where fluent reading hasn’t happened yet.
We hope to walk this road with you — until the day you no longer need us.
◆ Preview the words, then read the text
StepRead uses one simple method:
Learn the words first, then read.
When a sentence is full of unfamiliar words, your brain has to keep stopping:
Look up → understand → back to the text → look up the next word.
These constant interruptions make reading painful.
So before you read each section, StepRead lets you preview the words that appear in it.
By the time you start reading, they are no longer strangers.
You can put your attention where it belongs: on the story, the characters, and what the author is trying to say.
Not on the dictionary.
◆ Your goal isn’t to memorize every word
The first time you read, you may need to preview a lot of words.
That’s fine.
The more you read, the more words you know, the fewer you need to preview, the less you look up — and the smoother reading becomes.
Until one day, you can open an English book and simply read on.
That’s what we truly hope happens.
◆ Designed for reading English books
StepRead isn’t a flashcard app, and it isn’t an English course full of exercises.
It has exactly one goal:
to help you actually finish an English book.
Import your own EPUB books and read them in the reader.
Word previews and reading alternate:
Preview words → Read the text → Preview the next part → Keep reading
Learning and reading, naturally woven together.
◆ AI helps you understand words in context
An English word often has more than one meaning.
A dictionary definition alone sometimes tells you little about what it means in this sentence.
StepRead wants to show you not just a translation, but what the word means in this very sentence.
So you truly understand the text — instead of mechanically memorizing a definition.
◆ We hope one day you won’t need StepRead
That’s an unusual product goal.
We don’t want you to depend on this app forever.
Quite the opposite: we hope you use it less and less.
Your first English book may take heavy previewing.
After one book, two, five...
You’ll notice more and more words you already know. Places where you needed a dictionary, you now just read.
Eventually, you’ll pick up an English book and read it like a book in your own language.
That day, you graduate.
And StepRead’s work is done.
◆ Start with a book you can barely read
Preview the words, then read the text.
Let the words you need to look up become fewer and fewer.
Until one day, you can read English books on your own.
StepRead — with you on your reading journey, until you no longer need it.
This version is a complete rebuild. StepRead was redesigned from the ground up, returning to its original idea:
Preview the words, then read the text.
If you installed an earlier version, please note:
This update cannot keep data from the old version, including imported books and reading progress. You’ll need to import your books again after updating.
The interface and interactions are completely new.
We know this causes some trouble for long-time users, but this rebuild was necessary to make the core experience real — smooth EPUB reading, word pages alternating with the text, AI context definitions, and full offline support. The old architecture couldn’t carry these, so we started over.
If you only tried the old version briefly, consider this a first meeting. If you’ve been reading for a while, we’re sorry to ask you to start again — but this time, it will truly stay with you, page after page.
The developer, 诺 李, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- 诺 李
- Size
- 63.8 MB
- Category
- Education
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 16.4 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 16.4 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 16.4 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 12.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
English and 2 more
- English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 李诺