[ojame]

This looks pretty cool! A few questions (specifically for early years):

  - 5 books seems quite limited, especially for early years where shorter books are better. My kid currently reads 1 to 2 'readers' per day at home, outside of school. He not only gets bored reading the same book multiple times, but like most kids he ends up memorising a bunch of it so it's less 'reading' and more 'remembering'. How do you plan to give kids ~30+ books a month?
  - There's a lot of nuance in learning to read - my kid would take the easy way out if he could. The easy way out when we read together is to try with a word once, struggle, ask me what it says and move on. Depending on the context we do that sometimes, but most of the time we spend time dissecting it, comparing it to other words, understanding the context etc. He doesn't have the self control (do any kids? lmao) to do that by himself, or to be persistent enough. With support it's great - how do you plan on working through that problem, especially being able to dissect and compare previous experience?
  - I'm sure other parents can relate, but when it comes to learning to read, a lot of support is in keeping the child focused on the task. We generally like trying to read in a distraction free environment - after the novelty of Ello has worn off, have you seen any negative impact of having a screen with you constantly while you're learning to read?
  - Depending on what you research, there's a general sentiment around 'talking through the book and understanding it' is key to help children develop reading skills. It's less 'learning the sounds words make' and more 'reading for information'. Early readers attempt to do this with basic questions like "what color was the ball" or "where did the dog sleep", but i've never had much luck with those. We tend to have more success in talking about the book as we're reading. How do you plan to support that kind of learning ecosystem?

Again, this looks very cool! The above are just questions I'd ask myself before I'd buy one and 'outsource' some of our reading work, so just interested.

[tomsayer]

- Five is definitely insufficient for some children (and too much for kids who really struggle and want to perfect books). We're working on giving parents the ability to get more; either we ship more, or once you have read the physical books you can unlock digital books. Lots of considerations there of course. We also want you to be able to use books from e.g. the school library. Q for you - for the 1 to 2 readers a day your child reads, where do those books come from? - That's a great one. I haven't had that question before but I could certainly see the challenge there. Let me ask Elizabeth and Lauren (the experts) what they think on that. - It goes one of two ways; both which we're happy with. The first way is the child builds their confidence and doesn't need Ello anymore. Not the best for business but a great outcome :) The other is that the child continues to value the 'safe space' to practice reading, and does it in conjunction with reading elsewhere. - Research pretty strongly shows that the most important skill - to begin with - is decoding (learning the sounds words makes.). Comprehension comes after that. What has been fairly strongly disproven is that context in reading is sufficient (and some would even say helpful) in learning the fundamentals of reading. Having said that, comprehension is a crucial latter part of reading - we're excited for some of the potential for ChatGPT here in allowing us to go beyond basic questions.

Great questions for us to think about as to what would be in the back of parents minds. And Ill get back to you on the second!

[ojame]

Thanks for the detailed reply! Great answers and fills me with hope that perhaps Ello will work for us when our second or third starts reading.

We get the readers either from school or the library. Generally there's 1 reader a day from school, and maybe a little support book too. Then we just hire some from the library each week and use them to fill in the gaps, especially on the weekend. We have a wealth of other books, and hire picture books etc. for 'shared reading' times when we read to the kids after dinner etc.

"Comprehension comes after that" - makes total sense. Can see Ello being great at the decoding step, and yeah, some potential in ChatGPT and other new tech to assist more with comprehension.

Look luck mate, hope for you success!

[tomsayer]

Thanks!