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Launch HN: Litnerd (YC S21) – Teaching kids to read with the help of live actors

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Re: Launch HN: Litnerd (YC S21) – Teaching kids to read with the help of live actors

#31

Post by Anisa_Mirza »

HorizonXP wrote: post #29

1. Huge congrats on the launch and success! 2. Sign me up for the B2C offering for my 3 year old. 3. I’m a little confused on the delivery here. It seems that a teacher dedicates time during the day to have a live-streamed enactment of the story. Students then complete exercises relatively independently on their own devices?

Hey! Thank you - I wanna start with #3 (and I apologize for any lack of clarity in my original post), So when adopted in a classroom, one period every week (the same period every week) is a Litnerd designated period. The first of the 4 Litnerd periods is a pre-recorded episode adaptation of the book (to get the kids excited and hooked), subsequent periods are an interactive video conference where our Resident Teaching Artist stay dressed in character from the episode and goes through the reading, comprehension, SEL and ELA curriculum + lesson plans, etc. The student respond back, interact - we literally are kinda Outschool in School while staying in character of the episode reenactment. There are 2-3 pre-recorded episodes/short form content students can watch as well (students in all our classrooms were donated chrome books from Google). But a big chunk of this is live, interactive on the Smart Screen in classrooms.

Re: Launch HN: Litnerd (YC S21) – Teaching kids to read with the help of live actors

#32

Post by fudged71 »

Anisa_Mirza wrote: post #20
subpixel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Reading Rainbow, the subscription version. As a parent of a very young reader, here are my thoughts. - a video component to a reading program is a distraction, not a value-add, until around grade 4. young kids are mesmerized (this should be in all caps) by video, and before around grade 4 video will create a contest for kids' attention that reading will lose. they won't think "I want to read more so I can fol…

Hey there! Thank for comment. I believe some of what we do did not come across? We are not just a video subscription tool. We literally lead 'read out loud' in the classroom while the teacher/actor is acting out the main character in the book. We have a weekly designated Litnerd period in the schools/classes we serve and we live-stream in our teachers/actors for an interactive session (the students participate and re…

This did not come across at all for me either, until I watched the Loom. Personally I would love to see a short example of each teaching style supported in an actual classroom (reading out loud, recording, and live stream). Questions I had include: are the live streams interactive in any way? what features does the ebook contain (animations, background sounds, other effects)? and what level of quality are the recordings (do they have closed captioning available, how are the actors, etc)?

Re: Launch HN: Litnerd (YC S21) – Teaching kids to read with the help of live actors

#33

Post by Anisa_Mirza »

Anisa_Mirza wrote: post #31
HorizonXP wrote: post #29

1. Huge congrats on the launch and success! 2. Sign me up for the B2C offering for my 3 year old. 3. I’m a little confused on the delivery here. It seems that a teacher dedicates time during the day to have a live-streamed enactment of the story. Students then complete exercises relatively independently on their own devices?

Hey! Thank you - I wanna start with #3 (and I apologize for any lack of clarity in my original post), So when adopted in a classroom, one period every week (the same period every week) is a Litnerd designated period. The first of the 4 Litnerd periods is a pre-recorded episode adaptation of the book (to get the kids excited and hooked), subsequent periods are an interactive video conference where our Resident Teachin…

Dammit. I hit enter too soon! Re #1 and #2 omg I would love to sign you up when we go live for B2C and get your feedback as well! My email is anisa@litnerd.com

Re: Launch HN: Litnerd (YC S21) – Teaching kids to read with the help of live actors

#34

Post by Anisa_Mirza »

ksvarma wrote: post #30

Hi Anisa: Best wishes to you and your team. I am a parent and I try lot of different tools to help my kids with reading. Yes, the moment I bring up they often say its boring or lose interest. I am curious about what areas of your product be available for parents? If you can provide your email could share more about what I tried and what problems I face?

I would love that! My email is anisa@litnerd.com - can't wait to hear strategies that worked/didn't work for you and even share pitfalls we experienced and things we had to adapt within the very first few months that we launched. We hope to continue learning and adapting our program over the next 6-8 months at which point we hope to launch a B2C version!

Re: Launch HN: Litnerd (YC S21) – Teaching kids to read with the help of live actors

#36

Post by dang »

Anisa_Mirza wrote: post #20
subpixel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Reading Rainbow, the subscription version. As a parent of a very young reader, here are my thoughts. - a video component to a reading program is a distraction, not a value-add, until around grade 4. young kids are mesmerized (this should be in all caps) by video, and before around grade 4 video will create a contest for kids' attention that reading will lose. they won't think "I want to read more so I can fol…

Hey there! Thank for comment. I believe some of what we do did not come across? We are not just a video subscription tool. We literally lead 'read out loud' in the classroom while the teacher/actor is acting out the main character in the book. We have a weekly designated Litnerd period in the schools/classes we serve and we live-stream in our teachers/actors for an interactive session (the students participate and re…

I've added some of what you wrote here to the text above in the hope of making the explanation clearer!

Re: Launch HN: Litnerd (YC S21) – Teaching kids to read with the help of live actors

#37

Post by fudged71 »

My wife is a Grade 1 teacher in Canada. She loves the concept. Two points:

* Please provide a copy of the physical book with the subscription (to rent for 3-ish weeks). Particularly for young students to recognize the joy of a physical book, to go through it on their own time in the classroom, and as a supplement to the digital formats/lessons.

* Make sure the craft activities are creative and not 'cookie-cutter'. Make sure the students have autonomy to go off the path. Be very intentional about how it relates to the story. Several teachers do craft projects for themselves where the art all comes out looking the same and has no outcomes associated with them.

With a baby on the way, we would love to have a B2C subscription to this sort of content.

Re: Launch HN: Litnerd (YC S21) – Teaching kids to read with the help of live actors

#38

Post by subpixel »

Anisa_Mirza wrote: post #20
subpixel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Reading Rainbow, the subscription version. As a parent of a very young reader, here are my thoughts. - a video component to a reading program is a distraction, not a value-add, until around grade 4. young kids are mesmerized (this should be in all caps) by video, and before around grade 4 video will create a contest for kids' attention that reading will lose. they won't think "I want to read more so I can fol…

Hey there! Thank for comment. I believe some of what we do did not come across? We are not just a video subscription tool. We literally lead 'read out loud' in the classroom while the teacher/actor is acting out the main character in the book. We have a weekly designated Litnerd period in the schools/classes we serve and we live-stream in our teachers/actors for an interactive session (the students participate and re…

I did miss that from the homepage.

And yet, I just watched the Loom and am not bullish on a model where kids have and are asked to read on devices and then are streamed supporting video content.

There may be a delta between effective and commercially viable, but sitting with a group of kids and reading to and with them, as a teaching method, is fundamentally not broken. It works really, really well!

Kids who don't get that experience struggle, and while I appreciate that you are trying something that may offer some kids who need it some additional reading experience, I don't see it as anything like Khan Academy for reading, which we all agree would be super.

Re: Launch HN: Litnerd (YC S21) – Teaching kids to read with the help of live actors

#39

Post by Anisa_Mirza »

fudged71 wrote: post #37

My wife is a Grade 1 teacher in Canada. She loves the concept. Two points: * Please provide a copy of the physical book with the subscription (to rent for 3-ish weeks). Particularly for young students to recognize the joy of a physical book, to go through it on their own time in the classroom, and as a supplement to the digital formats/lessons. * Make sure the craft activities are creative and not 'cookie-cutter'. Ma…

This is all very valuable feedback. Esp the part re craft activity actually contributing to comprehension of the book/lesson rather than adhoc/random. We definitely build our own activities as part of our curriculum team to complement learning objectives based on the book and continue to look for improvements/feedback to make this better! As for the physical book, it's currently really hard as a startup to provide physical books but maybe as we grow and scale we will be able to do so I hope!!

Re: Launch HN: Litnerd (YC S21) – Teaching kids to read with the help of live actors

#40

Post by Anisa_Mirza »

Anisa_Mirza wrote: post #39
fudged71 wrote: post #37

My wife is a Grade 1 teacher in Canada. She loves the concept. Two points: * Please provide a copy of the physical book with the subscription (to rent for 3-ish weeks). Particularly for young students to recognize the joy of a physical book, to go through it on their own time in the classroom, and as a supplement to the digital formats/lessons. * Make sure the craft activities are creative and not 'cookie-cutter'. Ma…

This is all very valuable feedback. Esp the part re craft activity actually contributing to comprehension of the book/lesson rather than adhoc/random. We definitely build our own activities as part of our curriculum team to complement learning objectives based on the book and continue to look for improvements/feedback to make this better! As for the physical book, it's currently really hard as a startup to provide ph…

And I would LOVE to offer you B2C early access when that launches :) My email is anisa@litnerd.com (or I can get your email and add you to our early access list when we go B2C)
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