[HN Gopher] Show HN: Ello (YC W20) - AI-reading tutor for kids t...
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Show HN: Ello (YC W20) - AI-reading tutor for kids that works with
real books
Hi HN, We're Elizabeth, Catalin, and Tom - the founders of Ello
(https://www.helloello.com). Ello is an AI-powered app that mimics
the one-on-one interaction of a reading tutor by listening to,
encouraging, and coaching kids grade K-3 as they read out loud from
a real book. We posted on HN back in 2020 when we launched
Trustle, a company designed to pair families with dedicated experts
in child development. We learned from that experience that parents
don't want a consultant, but they do want actual help with specific
challenges--one of the biggest being reading. Prior to COVID, 65%
of 4th graders in the U.S. were reading behind level. The most
recent National Assessment of Educational Progress report revealed
that reading levels have dropped even further, to the lowest level
since 1992. These disheartening statistics reinforce something we
learned during our time at Trustle--of all the pain points parents
face in raising children, reading can often be one of the most
critical yet most difficult to address, especially if the child
doesn't like to read. In an effort to help reverse this trend, we
used advances in speech recognition - driven by self-supervised
learning - to create a virtual experience designed to provide
effective reading support. It's no substitute for attention and
coaching from a caring adult, which is obviously what kids really
need, but unfortunately that is not always available. If every
child had consistent access to 1:1 reading support and every parent
or caregiver had the time, language skills, and confidence to help
their children learn to read with no outside assistance, then there
would not be a need for a technical solution. Unfortunately, we
know not every child has this access, and many parents are looking
for extra support. That's why we've built Ello. If you look at a
great teacher or parent working with a child, they are talking to
each other. Ello uses a speech recognition model that listens to
what a child is saying and provides the appropriate phonics based
coaching, as well as commentary and help. As a child reads across
the page of a physical book, the Ello app tracks the child's
progress and picks up when they miss a word or get a word wrong and
then steps in just like a good reading coach would. One criticism
that we've heard since launching is that we are trying to replace
the sacred role of a parent teaching their child to read. We say,
"Not at all!". Ello can serve as a resource for every type of
parent without being a "replacement", which is impossible in any
case. We've had most success with children who are reluctant
readers. Ello provides a fun environment to practice reading
without the pressure of an adult watching you. We've seen kids who
flat out refuse to read start to enjoy reading in a short period of
time. We are highly privacy oriented; unlike most apps relying on
speech tracking we can work completely on device with no internet
and no audio data shared back with us. We launched in early in
2022 and have come a long way since then. The model works like
this: we mail customers five books and a prepaid return shipping
label every month. At the end of the month you mail the books back
or keep as many as you want for an additional $5 apiece, and then
we mail you next month's box. Our reading specialists help
determine the appropriate reading level for every child and make
sure that we are sending books to match. Right now we support
roughly K through 3rd grade, although Ello can be effective for
some Pre-K kids as well. We know there are many parents on HN,
including those with young children. We would love to hear about
your experiences and needs around your children's reading journeys
and your perspective on how something like Ello might help. Or, if
you're in the US, give us a try (we are only in the US as we ship
physical books right now, but are launching a digital only version
in the first half of this year and then will be available more
broadly) - you can get a free month with code ellohacker. And of
course we welcome any feedback, questions, and ideas!
Author : tomsayer
Score : 13 points
Date : 2023-01-05 16:18 UTC (6 hours ago)
| tdekken wrote:
| Congratulations on launching! I love the combination of an app
| coupled with physical books. It really demonstrates your
| understanding of your customers.
|
| * I would love to know more about your phonics instruction. From
| what I can see, Ello embeds the instruction into the "help the
| child sound out the words" component. Is that correct or is more
| systematic instruction provided?
|
| * How do you help children overcome the seemingly maddening
| inconsistency of the English language? For example, the long a
| sound can correspond to the a, ai, eigh, aigh, ay, er (RP), et,
| ei, au, a_e, ea, and ey graphemes.
|
| * Does your speech recognition system understand at the phoneme
| level?
|
| BTW, I would love to connect. I am an independent educational
| researcher and early literacy edtech founder. My background is
| big tech (principal engineer at a FAANG company) and am now
| navigating the treacherous waters of building an audience,
| securing funding, bringing in experts, etc.
|
| Best of luck!
| tomsayer wrote:
| Great questions! - When a child makes a mistake or needs help
| we take the child through a phonics decoding exercise
| (scaffolded 'sounding it out'.) Right now we support reading
| practice rather than provide full systematic instruction - i.e.
| we don't replace the rigorous, structured program a child
| should get in school. However, we are working right now on
| building out our own scope and sequence and detailed phonics
| instruction and hope to add that soon. - This one is beyond me
| and I don't want to pretend to be the expert here. That's
| Elizabeth and Lauren. Let's definitely connect and I'll get an
| answer from them. - Our speech recognition system does an OK
| job at the phoneme level. We are releasing an updated model
| that will go hand in hand with the scope and sequence that
| should be the best there is and be great at the phoneme level.
|
| Would love to connect. My email is my first name at our company
| url!
|
| Tom
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