The Current State of Literacy in the US
The United States is facing a reading epidemic, with national assessments showing that more than half of students are not proficient in reading by fourth grade (NAEP, 2022). Research highlights that ineffective reading instruction, particularly the lack of explicit phonics and early intervention, has left many students struggling to decode and comprehend text (Moats, 2020). Studies have found a strong link between early reading difficulties and long-term academic, economic, and health outcomes, with struggling readers more likely to experience lower high school graduation rates, reduced job opportunities, and increased health disparities (Hernandez, 2011; Cutler & Lleras-Muney, 2010). These widespread consequences indicate that poor literacy skills extend beyond education, shaping broader economic mobility and quality of life for millions of Americans.
To begin addressing these challenges, we sought to understand the root causes by speaking with educators—both seasoned and new—who witness these struggles firsthand. Through their insights, we identified some of the biggest barriers to effective literacy instruction:
Lack of Time – With larger class sizes and less parental involvement in reading practice, teachers are shouldering more responsibility, leading to increased burnout.
Assessments – While regular assessments are essential for tracking progress, frequent mandatory assessments are time-consuming, disruptive, and take away from valuable instructional time.
Leaving Some Students Behind – Classrooms often contain students at vastly different reading levels, making it difficult for teachers to maintain the required pace without leaving some students behind.
Reduced Attention Span – The proliferation of digital devices has made it harder to keep students engaged and focused on reading instruction.
Lack of Funding in Education – Despite an upward trend in K-12 education spending, the slow growth means funding remains insufficient for technology, instructional materials, and teacher support.
Our Approach
With the latest advancements in artificial intelligence, we saw an unique opportunity to address some of the biggest challenges educators face. Stagnant or declining literacy outcomes call for innovative, differentiated approaches that provide meaningful support to both students and teachers. Our approach is as follows:
Digital Teacher’s Assistant – We strive to be a digital assistant for teachers, handling some of the most time consuming tasks that they enjoy the least such as assessment, progress tracking, reporting, etc. while allowing them to focus on teaching and connecting with each student.
Continuous and Integrated Assessment – We use the latest AI technology to supplement teacher’s assessment and integrate them into activities so that they are undisruptive. The results are passed to our accompanying teacher’s dashboard for review.
Differentiated Instruction – Our app provides automatic assessment of each student’s answers, providing real-time feedback, and adjusts the content accordingly. The assessments are presented to their teacher for verification and record keeping.
Engaging Content – We offer a large variety of activities, stories, topics, and other reading content for each student so that they can find something they are intrinsically interested in. The activities are broken into bite-sized chunks with small rewards to keep students engaged.
Low Cost – We use AI tools to generate a significant portion of the content and to build the apps. While still creating jobs, our approach significantly reduced the cost for delivering a high quality product. We are able to price the product significantly lower than the incumbents and do not require a multi-year license.
L3C Organization
Our goal is to improve educational outcomes, not maximize profit. As a result, our pricing is among the lowest in the industry and we have no minimum per-school or per-class requirements.
