Peekapak
Product by Peekapak
Facts checked: Not yet checked
Our take (not a Learning Standard rating). This label applies to learning-science judgments throughout this overview.
Our take (not a Learning Standard rating)
Pending full evaluation. Peekapak effectively grounds social and emotional learning within established literacy routines, using narrative-based instruction to build schema around abstract concepts like empathy and self-regulation. However, without adaptive feedback mechanics, skill transfer relies heavily on the adult facilitator rather than the software alone.
Pros
- Embeds abstract social and emotional concepts into concrete narrative contexts to reduce cognitive load.
- Integrates directly with existing English Language Arts instruction to facilitate cross-curricular schema building.
- Provides tiered reading materials to accommodate varying literacy levels within a single classroom.
Cons
- Relies heavily on educator facilitation to bridge the gap between digital content and real-world behavioral transfer.
- Lacks sophisticated spaced repetition algorithms to ensure long-term retention of specific self-regulation strategies.
- Offers minimal automated feedback on incorrect student choices during interactive scenarios beyond a simple correction.
What Do We Know About Peekapak?
Peekapak is an effective tool for introducing social-emotional vocabulary to your child through structured reading, but it requires active adult participation to drive real-world behavioral changes. The platform relies on narrative-based learning, embedding abstract concepts like empathy and teamwork into relatable stories. This approach aligns with cognitive science principles showing that stories help children build mental models, or schemas, for complex social situations. Your child will read stories and complete interactive activities that prompt them to identify emotions and choose appropriate responses. However, the software does not possess the adaptive pathways necessary to correct specific behavioral deficits automatically. Instead, it serves as a shared text for you or your child's teacher to spark meaningful conversations. Because the digital feedback is limited, your child will not master emotional regulation simply by tapping through the app. The true learning happens when adults use the provided discussion prompts and offline activities to practice these skills in daily life. Currently pending evaluation by The Learning Standard, Peekapak shows strong potential as a supplemental literacy tool rather than a standalone behavioral intervention.
How Does Peekapak Work?
Peekapak uses narrative-based instruction combined with cross-curricular literacy integration to teach social and emotional skills. Students log into the platform and navigate through a series of interactive stories featuring recurring characters facing relatable social dilemmas. This grounds abstract concepts like self-regulation in concrete examples, functioning as worked examples for behavioral modeling. After reading or listening to a story, students engage with game-based comprehension checks and interactive scenarios where they must identify characters' emotions or predict the outcomes of specific actions. These activities utilize basic retrieval practice to reinforce new emotional vocabulary. For educators, the platform provides accompanying lesson plans, discussion prompts, and offline activities designed to fit seamlessly into English Language Arts blocks. The system assigns personalized reading levels to ensure the text complexity matches the student's current decoding ability, preventing cognitive overload.
Strengths and tradeoffs of Peekapak
Peekapak's biggest strength is its integration of social-emotional concepts into established literacy routines, while its biggest weakness is the lack of adaptive, personalized feedback during interactive tasks. By weaving skills like teamwork and empathy into reading materials, the platform capitalizes on dual-coding theory, presenting behavioral expectations through both narrative context and direct instruction. This cross-curricular approach ensures that social-emotional learning is not an isolated event but a continuous part of a student's academic day. Furthermore, the use of recurring characters provides worked examples of emotional regulation, giving children a clear model to imitate. Conversely, the digital platform itself relies on basic multiple-choice mechanics for its game-based elements. It lacks a sophisticated spaced repetition algorithm to revisit specific areas where a student might struggle, such as correctly identifying nuanced emotions. If a student chooses an incorrect behavioral response in a game, the system provides standard corrective feedback but does not dynamically alter future scenarios to target that specific deficit. Therefore, successful skill transfer depends entirely on the classroom teacher or parent utilizing the supplementary offline materials.
Who Might Benefit From Peekapak?
Peekapak is best for Pre-K through middle school educators and parents who want to integrate social-emotional learning directly into daily reading and literacy practice. Because it aligns with English Language Arts standards, it is an ideal fit for schools looking to meet social-emotional mandates without sacrificing core academic instructional time. The platform works particularly well for children who benefit from explicit, story-based modeling of social interactions. However, it is not suited for users seeking a fully autonomous, set-and-forget digital intervention, as maximum efficacy requires consistent adult guidance and offline discussion.
Data Transparency
Does Not Meet Data Transparency Standard
Peekapak does not meet our data transparency standard. Its privacy policy does not document basic protections, including limits on sharing children's data, parents' right to see their child's data and parents' right to delete their child's data.
19 of 35 checks passed
Evaluated September 2026
Peekapak Social Emotional Learning Curriculum for K-12 →Level 1 · Basic protections
Does not sell data or target ads at students, limits sharing, and lets parents see and delete their child's data.
Not documented: limits on sharing children's data, parents' right to see their child's data, parents' right to delete their child's data
Level 2 · Parent control (meets the standard)
Families can get their data out, know who processes it, and know how long it is kept.
Not documented: a data retention timeline, self-service deletion
Level 3 · Direct data access
Families or schools can pull their own data through an API, in a stated format.
Not documented: an API for retrieving their own data, a named export format
View all 35 checks
Parent Access5/8
Does the policy mention parents specifically?
“Teachers can invite parents/guardians of their students to join the Service to receive at-home assignments and feedback regarding their children, or Parents can subscribe directly.”
Can parents view their child's data?
The policy's access right covers only a user's own Personal Information and does not give parents a right to view their child's data.
Can parents modify their child's data?
The policy's correction mechanisms cover only a user's own Personal Information and do not give parents a right to change their child's data.
Can parents delete their child's account?
The policy lets users ask to have their own name and data removed but does not give parents a right to delete their child's data or account.
Is there a dedicated Children's Privacy section?
“Children's Privacy Protection:** If you provide any Personal Information of any person under the age of 13, you must have the legal right to do so under all applicable laws and regulations.”
Does it reference COPPA compliance?
“If you are located in the United States, you must comply with the requirements of the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA) and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).”
Does it reference FERPA compliance?
“We may be designated by your district as a school official with a legitimate educational interest in your student’s educational records and personally identifiable information. We are a school service contract provider.”
Is parental consent required for child accounts?
“IF YOU ARE A TEACHER OR A SCHOOL REPRESENTATIVE, YOU MUST OBTAIN ADVANCED WRITTEN CONSENT FROM PARENTS/GUARDIANS OF CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 13 WHOSE INFORMATION YOU WILL BE PROVIDING TO THE SERVICES.”
Data Portability2/5
Can users access their personal data?
“You have the right to access the Personal Information we hold about you in order to verify the Personal Information we have collected in respect to you and to have a general account of our uses of that information.”
Can users download/export their data?
“Upon receipt of your written request, we will provide you with a copy of your Personal Information although in certain limited circumstances, we may not be able to make all relevant information available to you such as where that information also pertains to another user.”
Is there a self-service data access tool?
The policy handles access through written requests and does not describe a self-service access tool.
Is a specific data format mentioned for export?
The policy does not name a format for copies of data.
Is there an API for data access?
The policy does not mention an API for data access.
Data Minimization2/6
Is data collection itemized?
“In order to register for our Services as a Teacher you must provide identity data ("Identity Data") to us such as your full name, salutation and contact data ("Contact Data") such as your email address.”
Can the app be used without a real name?
The policy says parents provide the child's Identity Data, and it uses that Identity Data for students.
Can the app be used without an email?
The policy says it uses students' Contact Data and may collect it automatically through Google or Clever log-ins.
Does it state collection is limited to what is necessary?
“We collect, use and disclose only such Personal Information as is required to provide the Services to you and support your use of the Services”
Is IP address anonymized or truncated?
The policy says IP addresses are recorded together with registration information and does not say they are anonymized.
Is location tracking explicitly excluded?
The policy does not rule out location tracking, and the cookie notice says a cookie remembers the user's location.
Third-Party Protection5/7
Does it explicitly state no selling of data?
“We will not collect Personal Information for the purpose of sale or marketing.”
Are third-party providers named?
“Amazon Web Services, Inc. - hosts all Personal Information that we collect;”
Are providers contractually restricted?
“These third parties may have limited access to databases of user information solely for the purpose of helping us to improve the Websites and/or the Services and they will be subject to contractual restrictions prohibiting them from using the information about our members for any other purpose.”
No-targeted-advertising commitment?
“We do not serve ads, so we do not use cookies to track your activity for targeted advertising.”
Is AI/ML data sharing addressed?
The policy does not address AI or machine learning.
Child-specific sharing restriction?
The policy's children's section deals with consent and indemnity and does not add a sharing restriction specific to children.
Cookies/tracking limited or opt-out?
“You can set your browser to notify you when you are sent a cookie. This gives you the chance to decide whether or not to accept it.”
Deletion & Retention1/5
Can users delete their account?
“You may request that your name and data be removed from our databases by contacting us directly.”
Self-service deletion mechanism?
The policy handles deletion by contacting the company and does not describe a self-service deletion tool.
Specific data retention timeline?
The policy keeps data as long as it is needed or legally required and gives no specific timeline.
Auto-deletion of inactive accounts?
The policy does not address automatic deletion of inactive accounts.
Post-deletion handling described?
The policy does not describe what happens to data after a deletion request.
Advertising4/4
Advertising model explicitly disclosed?
“We do not share your Personal Information with any third parties for advertising or marketing purposes. We not display traditional or contextual advertising.”
Free from third-party advertisements?
“We not display traditional or contextual advertising. We do not allow data collection by third party advertising or tracking services.”
Children excluded from ad targeting?
“We do not use any data to track or target advertisements on other third party websites or services.”
Ad-free option available?
“We do not serve ads, so we do not use cookies to track your activity for targeted advertising.”
What This Means
The policy review did not meet our data transparency standard. The checks above show the documented findings and unknowns. A missing statement does not establish how the app handles data in practice.
About this evaluation: Based on automated analysis of Peekapak Social Emotional Learning Curriculum for K-12 against 35 policy-disclosure questions, including questions adapted from the Common Sense Privacy Program's published evaluation questions. TLS is not affiliated with Common Sense Media, and this is not a Common Sense rating. Quoted text is copied from the policy; unquoted notes are our summary. Results describe what the policy documents, not the company's actual practices. Privacy policies can change: this review reflects the version we analyzed and does not determine legal compliance.
Sources and review method
TLS combines product information and editorial analysis to explain how Peekapak works, its tradeoffs, and the questions to ask before choosing it. Product features, an instructional rationale and evidence of learning outcomes are different kinds of information.
Formal Learning Standard assessment: not yet completed. Data Transparency findings are reported separately and do not establish learning effectiveness. Read our methodology.
Frequently Asked Questions About Peekapak
Is Peekapak free?
Peekapak offers a limited free tier, but full access requires an annual paid subscription. The base plan starts at $0 for basic features, while premium individual plans cost $99 or $199 per year. Schools and districts must request custom pricing for widespread implementation and advanced educator tools. The paid tiers unlock the complete library of tiered reading materials and comprehensive lesson plans.
Is Peekapak good for elementary students?
Yes, Peekapak is highly appropriate for elementary students, particularly in grades Pre-K through 5. The platform utilizes recurring, relatable characters and illustrated narratives that align perfectly with the cognitive development of early and middle childhood. By embedding complex social concepts into age-appropriate stories, it reduces cognitive load and makes abstract ideas like empathy highly accessible for young learners.
What does Peekapak teach?
Peekapak teaches core social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies alongside foundational English Language Arts skills. Specific behavioral topics include self-regulation, empathy, teamwork, perseverance, and respect. Academically, the platform reinforces reading comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, and writing skills by seamlessly integrating these emotional concepts into standards-aligned literacy activities and leveled reading texts.
How does Peekapak compare to Second Step?
Peekapak differs from Second Step primarily through its heavy integration into literacy and reading instruction. While Second Step is a dedicated, standalone social-emotional curriculum relying heavily on explicit video modeling and role-play, Peekapak uses leveled reading books and narrative stories to teach similar concepts. Peekapak is easier to blend into existing English Language Arts blocks, whereas Second Step requires dedicated instructional time.
Has The Learning Standard evaluated Peekapak?
TLS has not yet completed a Learning Standard evaluation of how well Peekapak teaches. Its privacy policy has been reviewed for Data Transparency and does not yet document the basic protections (Level 1).
Is Peekapak COPPA compliant?
The reviewed privacy policy references COPPA. A policy reference alone does not establish COPPA compliance. Policy review note: The policy names COPPA and its requirements.
Is Peekapak FERPA compliant?
The reviewed privacy policy references FERPA. A policy reference alone does not establish FERPA compliance. Policy review note: The policy describes its role as a school official under FERPA.
Does Peekapak have a children's privacy policy?
The reviewed policy includes a dedicated children's privacy section. Policy review note: The policy has a section headed "Children's Privacy Protection".
Does Peekapak sell student data?
The reviewed policy states that the app does not sell data. This is a policy statement; actual data practices were not verified. Policy review note: The policy says it does not collect personal information to sell it.
Can you delete your data from Peekapak?
The reviewed privacy policy describes account deletion. We have not tested the deletion process. Policy review note: Users can ask to have their data removed.
Follow TLS Research
Subscribe to future TLS research updates: app reviews, findings, and what the evidence shows.
Screenshots
Take Action
For Peekapak
If you represent Peekapak and have a correction or new evidence, send the relevant source so we can review and update this page.
Submit a correctionDetails
- Pricing
- Peekapak offers four main plans, all billed as an annual subscription. The subscription levels provide varying levels of access to Peekapak’s resources. Plans vary from $0, $99, $199 & custom plans if you would like to implement Peekapak school or district wide.
- Platforms
- Web Browser, iOS (Apple mobile), iPadOS (Apple tablet), Android (Google mobile), Tizen (Samsung mobile), Windows (Microsoft), macOS (Apple), Chrome OS (Google)
- Grade Levels
- Kindergarten, 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, 4th Grade, 5th Grade, 6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade, 9th Grade, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade
- Website
- Visit site