Thirty timeless stories for readers just starting out in English, with ten shorter fables besides. Aesop, Grimm, Andersen, Joseph Jacobs and Beatrix Potter, all public domain. Read them one by one, or follow the thirty-day plan. Every story is free, right in your browser.
Prefer to pick stories yourself? Browse all thirty by length and collection instead of following the day-by-day plan.
The vocabulary of fairy tales is the vocabulary of childhood: animals, food, family, forests, kings, princesses, simple actions. Around 500 common words give you 80 percent of what is on the page. The grammar is mostly past simple. Sentences are short.
This is the same input a native child receives. For an adult learner, it lets you read full stories from your first week, instead of textbook exercises about what colour the pencil is.
Studies of extensive reading, that is reading a lot of easy material rather than studying a little difficult material, find measurable gains in reading speed, comprehension and word recognition somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 words. In one study of Japanese college learners, around 50,000 words was the point at which extensive reading matched conventional classroom teaching (Iwata, Reading Matrix, 2020).
What those studies do not say is that a word count makes you A2. A CEFR level covers speaking, listening and writing as well, and reading volume alone does not decide it. What the volume buys you is the reading itself: words you recognise without stopping, sentences you take in at a glance.
Oxford University Press puts the principle plainly: read a lot, and read at a level where only three or four words on a page are new to you. That is how these shelves are built, and it is why the stories start at a hundred and fifty words rather than a thousand. About extensive reading, Oxford University Press →
This plan covers about 27,200 words, bringing you close to that threshold. The first seven folk tales that follow add another 10,288 words, bringing the total to about 37,488 — comfortably within the range. Reading the whole shelf takes you even further.
All the readings come from these five public domain collections, and every one of them is free to read here, day by day. If you would rather hold the paper, each collection has a paperback option on Amazon.
250 words, about 2 minutes. Free to read, no account needed.
Read Day 1 →Create a free account to save your progress and vocabulary. You can also start reading without one.
Short Greek fables with a moral at the end. Average length 150-300 words per story. The simplest English you can find in any classic collection.
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Classic English folktales told the way English children grew up hearing them. Simple sentences, repetitive structures, easy to follow.
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Tiny illustrated stories with very simple sentences. The original was written for a four-year-old child, which is exactly the vocabulary an A1 reader needs.
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The German fairy tales that became the world standard. Most tales are short. Language is plain. The classic versions of Hansel, Cinderella, Snow White live here.
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Danish fairy tales, often a little longer than Grimm and Aesop. We picked the simpler ones for this plan. The Princess and the Pea and The Emperor are here.
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You do not have to follow the plan. Here is every story on its own, easiest first, with its length so you can pick one that fits the time you have. Each opens with audio read-along, tap-to-define vocabulary and a short quiz.
Every story on this page in a single printable file: the thirty readings and the ten short fables. Free, no sign-up, ours rather than a link somewhere else. Print it, or hand it out in class.
The simplest English on the list: short fables with a clear moral, 150 to 300 words each.
Classic English folktales with lots of repetition, easy to follow out loud.
Tiny illustrated tales written for a young child: gentle vocabulary, perfect for A1.
Famous fairy tales, a little longer, split into short daily parts.
Well-known tales you already know the shape of, which makes the English easier to follow.
Shorter than day one of the plan, and not part of it. Classic Aesop fables of 150 to 300 words, about two minutes each, each ending in the lesson it was told for. The gentlest reading on the site, and a good place to start if thirty days sounds like a lot today.
Every story ends with a few questions, so you can check what you understood, or send the result to somebody else. Nothing needs an account.
The next shelf, and the same English at twice the length. A day of the plan is about 900 words; these run from 1,200 to nearly 4,000, so a tale is one evening rather than one coffee. Same original text, same reading aloud with the words lighting up, same tap-any-word: what changes is how long you stay with one story.
The first seven carry you past 37,000 words of English, counting the 27,200 of the plan. That is the point where vocabulary starts to move on its own, and it is the reason this shelf exists rather than another thirty short days.
No schedule here: take one after the plan, or take one tonight instead of a day of it. Nothing is locked and nothing needs an account.
One reading per day. The first week is the shortest (about 200 words at a time). By the final week you will be reading full fairy tales of around 1,800 words. The ramp is gentle and the total volume does the work.
A slow tortoise challenges a fast hare to a race. Everyone laughs. The lesson is simple and lives in every language.
A fox cannot reach the grapes. Sour grapes, said the fox. The shortest reading on this list.
A boy lies about a wolf for fun. The villagers stop believing him. Then a real wolf comes.
The ant works all summer. The grasshopper sings. Then winter comes and only one of them eats.
A tiny mouse promises to help a giant lion. The lion laughs. Later the mouse keeps the promise.
A thirsty crow finds a pitcher with water at the bottom. Smart problem solving in one paragraph.
Wind and Sun argue over which is stronger. The answer surprises both of them.
Two mice visit each other. Country quiet versus city danger. The longest Aesop on this plan.
A farmer kills the magic goose to get all the gold at once. Useful lesson for impatient people.
A wolf disguises himself to hunt the flock. The disguise works until it does not.
A hen thinks the sky is falling. She tells everyone she meets. A famous repetition story for English learners.
A baked man runs away from everyone who wants to eat him. Run, run, as fast as you can.
A girl enters a house that is not hers and tries everything inside. The three owners come home.
Three pigs build three houses. A wolf tests how well they built. End of week one thousand words.
A small rabbit visits the wrong garden. The most-translated children's book in English literature.
Peter Rabbit's cousin tries to rescue him. They both get into more trouble.
A frog goes fishing for his lunch. The lake has other plans for him. Beatrix Potter at her most playful.
A girl in a red hood walks to her grandmother's house. A wolf knows the path too.
A prince looks for a real princess. His mother tests every candidate with one tiny pea.
A donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster are too old for work. They run away together to start a band.
Three brothers want to cross a bridge. A troll lives under it. Smallest goes first, biggest goes last.
A brother and sister are lost in the forest. They find a house that looks too sweet to be safe.
The witch keeps them. Gretel has to think fast. A famous ending children remember for life.
A boy trades a cow for magic beans. The beans grow into the sky. A giant lives at the top.
A kind girl, two cruel stepsisters, and a stepmother who forgets the girl exists.
The ball, the shoe, the search through the whole kingdom. You probably know the end already.
Two tailors trick an emperor into wearing invisible clothes. Only a child speaks the truth.
A girl must spin straw into gold or die. A strange little man makes a strange offer.
A queen owns a magic mirror. The mirror tells the truth about who is the fairest.
The poisoned apple, the glass coffin, the prince. End of plan. You have read about 27,200 words of English.
No. They are short classic stories in simple English, which suits an adult starting the language and a child starting to read equally well. Every story ends with a few questions, so a learner can check what they understood and a parent can see that a child actually read it. The result can be shared. Nothing needs an account, and nothing costs anything.
The ten Aesop fables do, and it is printed at the end of each one: the fox and the crow ends on not trusting people who only say nice things, the goose that laid the golden eggs on what greed costs. The thirty readings of the plan are fairy tales and folk tales rather than fables, so they carry a lesson without stating it.
Yes, if you do it consistently. The plan covers about 27,200 words of reading you can follow, and studies of extensive reading find measurable gains in reading speed, comprehension and word recognition somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 words. What that will not do is hand you a CEFR level: A1 and A2 describe speaking, listening and writing too, and no amount of reading alone settles them. What it will do is make English on a page something you read rather than decode.
No. All 30 readings are free to read here in your browser, and they come from five public domain collections. We link to paperback versions on Amazon for readers who prefer paper, but you never need to buy anything.
Yes. The plan starts with the shortest Aesop fables (about 150 to 300 words each) and grows gradually over four weeks. By week four you will be reading full fairy tales like Snow White. The ramp is designed for absolute beginners with no prior reading practice.
Continue from where you stopped. The plan is structured but flexible. Skipping a day is not a problem. Skipping all of week three is. The total volume is what builds vocabulary, not the calendar.
Nobody can promise a level, and a plan that does is selling something. What this one gives you is substantial A1 reading practice and the confidence to open A2 texts — thirty complete stories read in English rather than exercises about them. Where you land depends on how carefully you read and what you do next. The folk tales and the A2 shelf are the next step.
They are the original public-domain tales, exactly as written, not simplified or rewritten graded readers. That means a few words are old-fashioned, which is normal, real English. The audio read-along and tap-to-translate vocabulary are there to carry you through them.
When fairy tales feel small, move up. The 12-month readClassicly plan covers Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein, Crime and Punishment, Madame Bovary and more. Free to download or read on the site.
This level asks for a set number of words, not a particular shelf: you move up when you have read enough at this difficulty, from wherever you like. These are the others.
About 36,000 words of reading at this level is where words start repeating often enough to stick. That is a floor rather than a limit: its 4 shelves hold 55,749, and reading all of them is a perfectly good idea.
First short stories: stories with an author behind them, a different writer every time. It is open whenever you are ready.
Go up to Classic short stories