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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

#61

Post by fudged71 »

Anisa_Mirza wrote: post #41
fudged71 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 recordi…

we cannot share the interactive video calls (aka livestream) because it is illegal for us to share/showcase minors from our interactive classes sin the classroom. But yes, the live stream - think of it as a video conference where the artist is in character and the students go through the lessons, answer questions based on the episode they watched earlier, read out loud, do the craft activity etc. As for the ebook - n…

>we cannot share the interactive video calls (aka livestream) because it is illegal for us to share/showcase minors from our interactive classes sin the classroom.

Of course. But can you mock a session? Can you get volunteer children to participate?

>As for the ebook - no special effect (yet!) but working on that! No close caption yet.

Both of these are fine of course. But again a product demonstration showing the student experience would answer what is or isn't in the product :)

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

#62

Post by Anisa_Mirza »

esrh wrote: post #60

I'm interested to know if this actually works at getting students better at reading. Since litnerd already has some 14k students, have you run any studies or recorded any metrics that show that litnerd is really helping kids learn to read better than the traditional strategies?

Thank you. I love this question because it is a critical kpi for us, naturally. First, I would like to acknowledge that there is much debate in the edu academic community on the best way to measure reading improvements. The most popular is Lexile level. However, this method has also received a lot of growing criticism in academic circles.

At Litnerd, today we measure learning outcomes in a few ways:

1) Increasing reading time amongst students. We measure time spent reading per student and have seen 63% increase here so far. Albeit our measuring methods still need improvement. I want to just ensure I communicate that a big value prop for teachers is that our program encourages structured reading habits. This is why time spent reading matters.

2) Increasing comprehension. Here we measure outcomes based on quizzes and lesson plans that are part of our course. I don't like this as the primary means but schools do measure learning outcomes based on testing per so and we adopt this method for now though intend on adding more ways to creatively measure this.

3) Engagement in the classroom! All of our live stream sessions are recorded and we actively measure how engaged students are in the class, if they are raising their hand to participate, are they having fun with the actors or is it boring etc.

Ultimately we need more than 4-5 months to be able to credibly report back on Lexile level improvement amongst students. But in the next 12 months we should have enough data to confidently report back on this metric directly!

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

#63

Post by Freeboots »

dmnd wrote: post #44

I'm a parent that just taught my 4yo preschooler to read. So I'm not really your target user, but I watched the walkthrough and read the website, and here are my reactions. Hopefully something here is useful for you: - I'm honestly baffled by spending so much time on one book (program?) in a classroom context. I imagine some kids won't be interested in the particular story, but it will go on for an entire month. I co…

Def agree about the name. Kids are assholes, and extremely self conscious. Anyone who thinks they're not aware of social concepts like being cool vs being a nerd are in for a bad time. But hey, Skool is kool, right?

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

#64

Post by fudged71 »

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…

The key point she made about including a physical book:

"Imagine a child's reaction when they're reading a physical book, and then the character comes to life on screen. THAT's the hook"

I know she had two similar teaching experiences this year, one was reading a book about Ivan the Gorilla, then showing a documentary about the actual Gorilla. And again with Harry Potter. This format really excites kids :)

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

#65

Post by greenie_beans »

This is a really cool idea. Kinda reminds me of Reading Rainbow, which I grew up on.

I'm curious how y'all plan to address one of the markets that need this the most -- public schools in the American South? Those schools are notoriously underfunded, so how do y'all plan to overcome budget issues? Sounds like you know what you're doing with the "budget line item process", so I'm curious to hear what you might have in mind.

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

#66

Post by Anisa_Mirza »

fudged71 wrote: post #64
Anisa_Mirza wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The key point she made about including a physical book: "Imagine a child's reaction when they're reading a physical book, and then the character comes to life on screen. THAT's the hook" I know she had two similar teaching experiences this year, one was reading a book about Ivan the Gorilla, then showing a documentary about the actual Gorilla. And again with Harry Potter. This format really excites kids :)

I feel you on that (or rather, understand exactly what your wife means here). That’s kind of the reaction when kids read the ebooks now and then ‘meet’ the character (our actors who teach the lessons) in live video! They get so excited. Let us close our seed round, grow a little more, and hit Series A milestones and I’m sure we will be adding more physical aspects to the book ;)

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

#67

Post by Anisa_Mirza »

greenie_beans wrote: post #65

This is a really cool idea. Kinda reminds me of Reading Rainbow, which I grew up on. I'm curious how y'all plan to address one of the markets that need this the most -- public schools in the American South? Those schools are notoriously underfunded, so how do y'all plan to overcome budget issues? Sounds like you know what you're doing with the "budget line item process", so I'm curious to hear what you might have in…

Great point and thank you for the kind feedback! The truth is all states (and cities within some states) are very different in their process for adopting new vendors. Funding per pupil in Southern states also varies greatly. For instance Florida and Texas are pretty well funded compared to other states in the South. We have only now started entering some state/cities outside of NYCDOE so i don’t feel I can give you the most scientific answer here (yet), except to say that all districts are kinda different (as I’m aware you already know). Any feedback or ideas are welcome!

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

#68

Post by 1123581321 »

Anisa_Mirza wrote: post #51
1123581321 wrote: post #43

This looks entertaining but it has almost nothing to do with teaching reading and literacy. I’m a little depressed by this, honestly. The failure of Sesame Street to educate beyond pre-reading is well documented and isn’t the model we should be pursuing in 1-12 and especially not via vendor lock-in at a district level. What I’d love to see is someone who figures out how to scale and make attractive the approach of a…

Sorry to hear your disappointment. To be clear, this is not mandated at the District level. In NYC, each school acts as its own mini CEO, if you will. They have full autonomy to choose from any contracted vendor, of which there are many reading tool or reading program options. They choose us by choice, and continue to use us, because of engagement levels, learning outcomes and response from teachers :) I would love t…

Thanks; I’m glad to hear teachers have a choice.

I didn’t communicate well re: Sesame Street. I didn’t mean that your show is actually like Sesame Street, rather that the model is to use the entertainment value of the readers/actors/action to engage students until they start to read well due to other factors, rather than to directly teach those fundamentals and rely on the students’ delight in their fledgling skills to pull them further into good habits and teacher-guided reading.

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

#69

Post by rahimnathwani »

"if you are a parent, I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on how you foster reading amongst your students/children"

From birth: We read to our son often.

August 2020: I saw a recommendation on HN for the book "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons".

Aug-Dec 2020: I spent 25-30 hours following that playbook. (15-20 mins per day, 5 days per week, 20 weeks.)

August 2021: Our son (now almost 5yo) reads beyond the level that will be expected of him when he finishes Kindergarten (2 years from now). Most important for me: he's improving (both decoding and comprehension) without our help. He just picks things he wants to read (from his bookshelf, from the library, or from the thrift store), and gets started. He'll re-read books he likes, and abandon others.

Anyone who can read at high school level can follow the instructions in the book I used. Assuming you can find people like that for minimum wage(?), it should be possible to teach N children to read for $500 * N. ($15/hr x 30 hrs = $450, plus some money for materials.)

To put that $500 into context: it's approximately the same as SFUSD spends per student per week.

If you can really teach every child to read, for $8 per student ($110k/14k = $8), that would be a game-changer.

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

#70

Post by greenie_beans »

Anisa_Mirza wrote: post #67
greenie_beans wrote: post #65

This is a really cool idea. Kinda reminds me of Reading Rainbow, which I grew up on. I'm curious how y'all plan to address one of the markets that need this the most -- public schools in the American South? Those schools are notoriously underfunded, so how do y'all plan to overcome budget issues? Sounds like you know what you're doing with the "budget line item process", so I'm curious to hear what you might have in…

Great point and thank you for the kind feedback! The truth is all states (and cities within some states) are very different in their process for adopting new vendors. Funding per pupil in Southern states also varies greatly. For instance Florida and Texas are pretty well funded compared to other states in the South. We have only now started entering some state/cities outside of NYCDOE so i don’t feel I can give you t…

I'm not an educator, only an individual with no children who is interested in education. I do some volunteer work for education non-profits, so not sure how much help I'd be about budget stuff. Was really just curious when I asked that question.

With that said, most of my knowledge is about Mississippi. We have tons of problems with our public education system. Budget constraints are always a big issue for teachers, and one that might make it difficult to adopt a new program. At a very high level: https://mississippitoday.org/2018/04/16/analysis-shows-state...

If you're trying to make an impact in Mississippi, the Barksdale Reading Institute works in this space: https://msreads.org/.

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