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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

#71

Post by Anisa_Mirza »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #69

"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 be…

I love this - your commitment to being an engaged/active (reading) parent has totally paid off! To add some color here, that's kind of the equity problem we hope to address by being strictly B2B for now. Majority of our students today come from Title 1 schools (ie schools where 92% of the population comes from low-income families and receive free breakfast and lunch programs). Both parents are rarely even around/present (which was the case for me growing up as well). If a parent is present, they are (on ave) working 2 jobs to make ends meet or English is not their fluent language. That's why the 42% of grade 4 students reading far below their level is highly skewed towards Title 1 school population (though reading is generally in decline across the board regardless of socioeconomic status). Litnerd provides a level playing field for students who don't have parents that can read to them and be as engaged as you are are with your son (which I 100% admire and commend you for). 65% of US schools are Title 1 classified schools. This is a problem that effects majority of Americans and a B2C first approach completely neglected this audience. Finally, for transparency, we charge the district between $30-50 per student for a full year's worth of materials (books, curriculum/lesson plans, live stream teachers/actors, video episodes, our SaaS tool etc).

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

#72

Post by Anisa_Mirza »

1123581321 wrote: post #68
Anisa_Mirza wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 clarify you are against (or I guess not in favor of) art and theatre, story-telling etc. to improve learning outcomes and interest in reading? I can sense you're being super thoughtful in your followup and I feel I might be missing your feedback, which is why I want to respectfully clarify.

If what I paraphrased above truly is your position, we will have to respectfully agree to disagree. Tons of research shows that the brain synapses grow stronger through active participation in the arts/story-telling/theatre. These essential activities at an early age can actually create new neural pathways and fortify those that are already present.

But again, I want to be careful to not miss your point because if you took the time to clarify, I want to make sure I beneifit from your feedback and sound like I'm ignoring it.

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

#73

Post by Anisa_Mirza »

greenie_beans wrote: post #70
Anisa_Mirza wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Really cool resources (esp msreads). Thank you! To clarify, while teacher budgets for SaaS tools and even core education materials are 100% pretty limited, for low income schools, the federal Title 1 budget funding helps compensate for local principals to adopt programs like ours by allocating chunks of budget to help schools that need it most. Again, still learning as we grow. Finally, love that you volunteer for edu orgs - if I may ask, which ones are you involved with?

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

#74

Post by TianyouXu »

Awesome stuff Anisa -- there used to be a program back when I was in elementary school called "accelerated readers' program" which really helped me become a better reader. Basically you read a book and you can take a test after reading that book and based on the level of difficulty of that book / how well you did on the test, you would get points. And those points would get your prizes (like coupons to Chuck-E-Cheese or to a movie). Top weekly readers also got shout outs over the PA system during morning announcements. Great way to gamify reading and helped me a lot. Maybe that concept can be inspo for something here!

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

#75

Post by k_sears »

TianyouXu wrote: post #74

Awesome stuff Anisa -- there used to be a program back when I was in elementary school called "accelerated readers' program" which really helped me become a better reader. Basically you read a book and you can take a test after reading that book and based on the level of difficulty of that book / how well you did on the test, you would get points. And those points would get your prizes (like coupons to Chuck-E-Cheese…

I LOVED that program! That and the MS Readathon were totally my things! At the time you don't realizing they are using game theory, but as an adult you look back and think "that was really smart". Very much food for thought.

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

#76

Post by Anisa_Mirza »

TianyouXu wrote: post #74

Awesome stuff Anisa -- there used to be a program back when I was in elementary school called "accelerated readers' program" which really helped me become a better reader. Basically you read a book and you can take a test after reading that book and based on the level of difficulty of that book / how well you did on the test, you would get points. And those points would get your prizes (like coupons to Chuck-E-Cheese…

Omg yes! AR was the pioneer of reading program SaaS in schools (they had a huge exit too). Epic Reading (more commonly used by kids today in schools) came after that - similar idea of gamification to encourage reading.

I definitely love the idea of gamification, the only thing I would add as feedback we have noted from parents is that Epic and AR would push kids to read 'fast' books within the Lexile range they had to stay in, rather than books that might be more interesting to them. The tests also weren't the greatest to measure comprehension because of their format. Having said that, I definitely love the idea of gamification inspired vey AR and we intend on having some of that in our program too!

I'm still grinning that you know and used AR! So cool.

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

#77

Post by 1123581321 »

Anisa_Mirza wrote: post #72
1123581321 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 clarify you are against (or I guess not in favor of) art and theatre, story-telling etc. to improve learning outcomes and interest in reading? I can sense you're being super thoughtful in your followup and I feel I might be missing your feedback, which is why I want to respectfully clarify. If what I paraphrased above truly is your position, we will have to respectfully agree to disagree. Tons of research shows th…

Yes, I think that’s a fair summary. I agree we must disagree and I likewise have appreciated your thoughtful replies. :)

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

#78

Post by greenie_beans »

Anisa_Mirza wrote: post #73
greenie_beans wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Really cool resources (esp msreads). Thank you! To clarify, while teacher budgets for SaaS tools and even core education materials are 100% pretty limited, for low income schools, the federal Title 1 budget funding helps compensate for local principals to adopt programs like ours by allocating chunks of budget to help schools that need it most. Again, still learning as we grow. Finally, love that you volunteer for ed…

Cool about Title 1!

In the past, I’ve worked for the Meridian Freedom Project: http://themeridianfreedomproject.org/ and Leap Frog: https://theleapfrogprogram.org/. Currently live in Birmingham, AL and each semester I volunteer for a creative writing program called DISCO: http://www.discobham.com/.

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