What if young children could conduct research before they could read? This session details three criteria to make programs and apps more useful for young children trying to conduct research (project-based learning) without adult help. For developers, this means creating products that have specific kinds of content with a host of features made for sophisticated and tech-savvy pre-readers. For parents, this means having tech that supports children’s agency, develops curiosity and fosters a range of higher level thinking skills. For preK-2 teachers, this means having desperately needed technology for project learning so that even young children can learn about topics they are interested in without so much adult intervention. Currently, most programs & apps with significant content are text-based. Those that are not are primarily reward-oriented games with little content. This session identities 3 key criteria that enables pre-readers to gather significant content on their own.