Totally hear the concern. We have a few thoughts about this: 1). It's an AND not an OR for us. Ello doesn't replace parents at all. In fact, many parents use Ello WITH their kids and report that Ello has opened the doors to the kid reading more with them. 2). Not all parents have the skills to teach their child to read (or the literacy skills), there are also non-native English speakers who use our product and are grateful to have that support. 3). According to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a nationally representative assessment of student achievement in the United States, about 37% of fourth graders in the United States scored below the "proficient" level in reading in 2021. The scores are disproportionately lower for children of color and those with less resources. I would love for every child to have access to a 1:1 tutor (which runs about $100/hr), individualized education options and high quality education. But right now, we aren't supporting our kids.

It's also worth noting we aren't a full solution or a curriculum. So teaching in other ways still needs to take place. For many parents, it beats Disney plus and YouTube kids :)

First, thanks for taking the time to respond. Like I said, I do hope I'm wrong.

I will admit, this does seem like a pretty good use for computers.

I just I hope it's not part of the slippery slope to letting machines do our thinking for us. (Then again, what if they do a better job than we do!?)

I'm curious about how you detect and correct problems with the machine material? E.g. the (presumably automatic) error of substituting "phantom" for "fathom"?

Does your machine take a overconfident stance, or does it understand its own limits and help the child to know that it is not infallible?

Thanks! And thanks again for the feedback.

Great feedback! We will think about this and perhaps do some testing around this language with our audience.

Right now we work closely with parents (checking in with them each month before the books ship out) to help guide them in making the decision around book choice. We also have a form parents can send to the teachers. In the future, we will have a tighter feedback loop to support this decision making that comes directly from the way the child interacts with the app (if we have the permission to analyze that data from the parent).

Got it. Thanks for the reply.

Thanks for your comment! As of right now, We aren't a tool that diagnoses or assesses in a formal way (though we may move in that direction in the future). Research shows that the number of children who read for pleasure is the lowest it has been in decades. Additionally, many children don't read at home at all, and resist parent (and school) bids to have them read at home independently. Ello's focus is more on making reading for fun a more supported experience where the kids have an opportunity to learn in the moment (using evidence-based strategies). We support comprehension through commentary Ello makes (summarizing and commenting as the child reads) rather than testing or assessing the child's comprehension skills. This was a purposeful choice. Hyperlexia isn't something that can be "created" through reading independently (Elizabeth here, child clinical psychologist and co-founder of Ello). It is a (relatively rare) disorder where very young children decode far above grade level. In most cases, this is flagged in schools, and would be flagged for us if a parent reported a very high reading ability for their child's age (which is usually the opposite profile of our customer). However, you are correct that hyperlexia is a learning difference where there is decoding without meaning. Generally, we send books for children that are at or below grade level in reading for practice with reading fluency. We aren't a full service curriculum (and have designed our program to focus on enjoyment and time in text).

Thanks for the comment! We find that if a parent actually uses the product, and it changes their child's relationship with reading, Ello is quite sticky. Our biggest issues with churn are related to cost of the product and activation (people cancelling without ever using it). In terms of advice: 1) talk to parents about their pain points and iterate again and again, 2) be aware that a product that increases "work" rather than easing it, that causes a lot of resistance and friction.

We took a look at read along - it seems to have fallen off. I think the biggest issue with read along was the approach to supporting kids (it just gave the words rather than coaching the child through decoding them) and the quality of the "books" (the stories weren't that engaging and the illustrations were simple). The quality of the story matters a lot.

We looked at soapbox but for a number of reasons, we want to build our own speech recognition technology and have the team to do it! There are some issues with the time is takes for soapbox to run as well as the accuracy of the model. Thanks again!

Thanks for being honest, and I am sorry you feel that way. You are welcome to learn more about our privacy policy. I have helped countless families through my career, and have an incredibly deep respect for parents who seek support. I also believe that for our service to work, we have to have trust and operate ethically. I would not risk my professional ethics (or my license) for the sake of my business. Our vision is truly to make support more accessible and affordable for families. There is a need, and it's really sad when parents can't get the support they need or want, and don't always have easy access to reliable information.

I'd like to elaborate a little bit on what I'm suspicious of. Two relevant ideas are commonly encountered on Hackernews. The first: "Commoditize your compliment." (https://www.gwern.net/Complement) and the second, related, notion of "platforms."

It sounds to me like your startup wants to create a platform which captures the relationship between a family and their child development expert. In this business model your compliments are families and child development experts and by creating a low friction market between them you are naturally inclined to view them as commodities, as the platform holder. In my experience educated professionals don't like to be treated as commodities (in fact, I've never met a person who likes the idea of their labor being commoditized). Furthermore, my sense is that in the particular case of childhood development, a more personal touch is required (is perhaps the actual effective thing) in counseling children and families. In my view, the business model you have here, the fact that you think of it as a startup and that you debuted it on Hackernews, suggests that these fundamentally economic ideas form the substructure of what you are proposing.

The idea of connecting families to expert advice is great. If you really cared about that, why didn't you form a cooperative of child development experts who could invest in the appropriate technology? Such a platform, because it would be under cooperative control by the professionals in question, would resist commodification of both the families and professionals involved. In fact, a cooperative arrangement could even extend ownership to the families involved.

When I see a startup I assume the founders have dollar signs in their eyes. Years of hanging out on Hackernews have only underlined that perception. What I am getting at is that the very structure and context of this idea suggests either an ulterior motive or (to be more charitable to you) a misaligned incentive. I'm suspicious of either.

Thanks - lots of parents say it saves them a ton of time. We have had parents say 'I don't have time to read 5 contradicting books on sleep and potty training, all saying their approach is the best one.' We can help parents sort through the noise, look at their options, and figure out which approach makes the most sense for them.

I appreciate this really important question. I think the same way that psychologists, therapists, and teachers do. There is absolutely something powerful about a shared cultural experience with a provider, and we are keeping diversity on the forefront of our mind when hiring, recruiting, and onboarding coaches (it's also a reason that we allow parents to choose their own coach, rather than assigning them). The second is that our professionals, like all licensed professionals in education and the helping professions, are trained to be able to work with a variety of people, and cultural competence is emphasized (it's often a required component of training, education, and continuing education). We screen for cultural competency and the ability to work with a diverse range of parents. That being said, we know at the cultural match is important, and this is a real issue that exists in the helping professions. We hope that Trustle will actually provide a platform for increased opportunity and availability of diverse coaches (as opposed to being confined by who lives in your immediate area).

Thanks for sharing your experience. Alina is fantastic!