Wonder.io: Interactive, Gamified Reading

We are in the middle of a literacy crisis. About one third of early Elementary children are missing their reading benchmarks. Up to 60% of students in urban, low-income schools are at high risk for reading problems. Without intervention, these struggling readers will be at a 1st or 2nd grade reading level in high school.

While this literacy crisis is multi-faceted, one major contributing factor is children’s lack of motivation. Children’s motivation to read is a stronger predictor of success than gender, income, or parental education. In a world of iPads, video games, and Youtube, more and more children fail to engage with school books and opt out of their learning.

Wonder Stories reengages struggling readers by providing a library of over 100 interactive, gamified books that children can access from their smart phones. 

Families can access these books for free at www.wonder.io

Each book is an interactive experience:

1.   Children are asked questions about every 90 seconds, allowing them to participate and cognitively engage in the study.

2.   Stories are written with interactive questions baked in. Readers solve mysteries and help the protagonists through these questions.

3.   Children are given consistent positive feedback as they work through solving the mysteries.

4.   Questions are tied to social competition, like Kahoot, adding importance to focusing and comprehending.

While a large diversity of children have enjoyed Wonder.io (over 5,000 families), Wonder.io works especially for reluctant readers with Dyslexia or ADHD. We have been co-creating Wonder.io for over 10 years with reluctant readers at Denver Public Schools and the Boys & Girls Club. A majority of the kids we work with are African American or Hispanic and are 1-2 grade levels below in reading.

Wonder.io is written a 2nd grade reading level so children in 2nd -5th grade can participate independently. Parents have enjoyed reading with their children for early grade levels, as they get to answer questions together.

Wonder.io is offered for free as many of the families and schools we work with do not have the budget to purchase books or staffing resources for the much needed one on one reading.

In our year long pilot studies, Wonder.io was able to successfully engage these struggling readers. At the beginning of the year, student’s had a strong negative stance to reading, as one reader put on the first day, “Reading sucks.” Children, on average, read for less than 5 minutes when assigned a reading task.

After a month of Wonder.io, children’s reading motivation drastically changed. Children would ask to read another book, even after a full hour of wonder.io. On multiple occasions children told their family they had to wait in the car to be picked up. Comprehension scores jumped from 20% to 100%.

Wonder.io was a grass roots imitative started at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Denver (The clubs we worked at had 90% Black and Hispanic students and most children were 1-2 grade levels below in reading).

The solution we show today was built from 10 years of cocreation, prototyping, and iteration alongside the children and staff at the Boys & Girls Club. Our first prototypes failed spectacularly. Children refused to watch our videos, care about our rewards, or pay attention to any of our text. But we asked them, what would work, what do you want? Over 20 iterations later, Wonder.io is working in these clubs because it was specifically designed by and for the students. 

While library books did not motivate our students, wonder.io worked.

Two of our three founders are first generation college students, and amongst us, we are African American, Native American, and Hispanic.

1. We have a minimum viable product and now need to start looking at where is Wonder.io's home. How can we bring Wonder.io to as many kids as possible? What is the messaging and what is our strategy to start reaching out to schools, teachers, and parents? We would love to have help looking at how to expand Wonder.io.

2. We are developers and designers immersed in education - interacting with students and teachers constantly, but we seldom interact with Edtech Entrepeneurs. We know others out there have gone down our paths and have great advice. We'd love to meet other like minded individuals and find new partners for collaboration and support.

All of our competitors are reliant on decades of old books saved as PDFs: taking an old solution, passive books, and making them digital, without taking advantage of the digital tools available for them.

We are the only company focused on making interactive, competitive reading experiences for kids.