Apparently nearly three million parents have downloaded the CBeebies Playtime app so far. I’ve seen the appeal of its games based on the BBC’s pre-school TV channel first-hand: my two sons can’t get enough of its Swashbuckle game at the moment.

Anyway, today saw the launch of a second CBeebies app for Android, iPhone and iPad. It’s called CBeebies Storytime, and as the name makes clear, this is less about playing games, and more about reading stories.

Specifically, there are six stories at launch – more will be added later if the Playtime app’s development is any guide – with some of the channel’s most familiar shows: Something Special, Charlie and Lola, The Octonauts, Old Jack’s Boat, Show Me Show Me and Grandpa in My Pocket.

Each offers a similar mix of text, animation and interactivity, designed to be used alone by 3-6 year-olds, or with their parents. Children can swipe through the stories, with voice narration and highlighted text.

There are some specific tasks to complete, but also plenty of objects to tap on and see what happens. At the end of every story, there are some comprehension questions to see if your children have remembered the story, as well as a prompt to talk about it with you.

The app itself is hosted by CBeebies presenter Alex Winters (well, his voice), with colleagues Andy Day and Katy Ashworth chipping in to narrate some stories. Others have voices from the actual shows.

Also good: the grown-ups section, which besides explaining how the Beeb’s privacy policy works, gives you some tips on reading with your children.

I interviewed the app’s producer Lizzie Leadbeater for The Guardian today, and she talked about the goal with the latter: “Nice, fun, light tips for parents within the app to help engage children in reading. That includes being a good reading role-model, having fun with stories, and making time to talk to children about the stories you read together.”

CBeebies Storytime is a free download for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, and a free download for Android from the Google Play store.