Family Learning Company

Problem

The problem we are solving is functional illiteracy among 54% of American adults and the reading difficulties that two thirds of American school children have because they read below grade level. According to Georgetown University, almost two thirds of jobs in the U.S. will require at least some college studies by 2020, yet according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, only 15% can read college level material. Given that the American workforce is 160 million strong, the lack of literacy is limiting the workforce success of 53 million people and consigning another 53 million to low paying dead-end jobs.

In terms of lost productivity, the Georgetown study estimates that the portion of the population that can't read costs the nation a staggering $225 billion each year. When patients lack basic reading skills, it costs the health care system an additional $100 billion annually. Illiteracy drives crime and its associated costs: about 70% of inmates score at the lowest reading level. Overseas, 774 million adults aged 15 or older are completely illiterate, and at least that many are functionally illiterate, reading below the 6th grade level. That’s over 1.5 billion adults who can’t participate in the modern global economy.

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Solution

Interactive Family Literacy has over 9,700 learning activities, in English and Spanish, for both adults and children, that families own and can use for the years-long journey that literacy takes.

Interactive Family Literacy is available anytime, anywhere: after school, during the summer, in transit and at home. By engaging children with their parents, siblings and other adult relatives during the learning process, the software builds stronger family relationships. Most important, by putting students and their families in charge of their own learning pathways, the software develops agency, decision-making skills and the sense of control that creates engagement to help students navigate the strenuous pathway to higher education and job success.

Interactive Family Literacy provides a unique approach to family literacy: multi-generational software. First, multi-generational content: literacy learning activities for children and activities designed for adults. Second, multi-generational usage: the software encourages children and parents to learn together.

All the literacy modules are comprehensive:  they cover all six components of literacy: Phonemic Awareness, Decoding, Vocabulary Development, Reading Fluency, Reading Comprehension, and Writing.

Interactive Family Literacy is learner controlled. We don’t let the computer tell learners what to do next; learners are much more engaged when they tell the computer what to do. They base decisions on the formative assessment feedback after every question, every activity and for every level. When parents and children are logged in together, they can see each other’s reports.

Our phonics activities are graphically appealing, rich with audio, and fun to play for both children and adults. Just as important, they follow the Orton-Gillingham multisensory approach and sequence for phonemic awareness and decoding skill instruction, scaffolding learners up the hierarchy of English language reading.

Our vocabulary system provides all of the words in the top three high frequency vocabulary lists. For each set of words, we provide 5-10 different vocabulary activities, including matching words to sounds, words to definitions, and word search puzzles

We build reading fluency by providing a peer-guided oral reading experience. Learners choose from hundreds of e-books adult life skills readings. Readers start the timer to improve their fluency against grade level benchmarks, while listeners follow along, help with difficult words and correct mistakes.

Our comprehension activities are not just about memory. We include higher order skills, such as summarizing, inferences and the emotional content of stories.

In our writing activities writers use a simplified word processor to write their own stories using pictures from the books they read.

Finally, Interactive Family Literacy is an evidence-based solution. It automatically keeps track of user data. It keeps track of usage by keeping track of how much time each family spends with the software. It keeps track of mastery by keeping track of how many and which skills each family member masters. And it can provide reports on individual family members, each family as a whole, all family members, all children, and all adults.

Who Benefits and How

The 54% of American adults who are functionally illiterate, the two thirds of American school children who read below grade level, the almost 800 million illiterate adults around the world, and the almost 400 million illiterate children around the world.

Family Learning Software connects adults and their children on a shared learning journey. Proficient children can help the adults in their families learn to read and write by using the software with them. Adults can compare their progress with their children, compete and motivate each other to keep at it, just like they do with video games, but developing much more valuable skills. And, educators can track the progress of both adults and children to better help them learn.

In our vision, parents who are more literate will help their children become more literate, and visa-versa. ABE programs will experience deeper student engagement, retention and learning, justifying greater funding and supplying the labor force with higher productivity workers. With an effective approach to remediating adult illiteracy, workforce development programs will offer literacy skill development as a central component of their job preparation programs. Corporations around the world gain an incentive to offer literacy skill development as a component of job training. They will be able to offer higher salaries to low position employees who can increase their productivity through literacy, and reduce turnover from employees who are helping their children learn using a company benefit. Finally, the global economy will be more productive when more employees are more literate, offering greater growth, higher salaries and/or increased leisure time to citizens of the U.S. and other countries.

What will it feel like to individuals living in a more literate world? Twice as many people will approach their day with feelings of dignity, accomplishment and confidence when they head off to work. Twice as many people will have deep loving connections with their children, strengthened by shared time together. These happier, more productive people will have more leisure time to develop their spirituality, to participate in civic governance, to exercise together and to develop their other interests. Literacy is the doorway to a more loving and productive world. Family learning is the key to that future.

One example of how we have worked with affected communities to design our solution is with way we worked with our collaborating partners in Malawi and Zambia to create Chichewa and Nyanja language versions. In each case, we worked with the collaborating partner organization to select stories, and then translate them into the native language…and create audio files in the native language. We also worked together to translate and record comprehension and writing activities based on the selected stories. We also worked together to select appropriate vocabulary words in the native language, and then write and record definitions and context sentences. Finally, we with the collaborating partner organizations to determine the best methods of distributing the product in their country.

Our theory of change has two components: (1) that our solution can increase literacy skills and (2) that an increase in short-term literacy skills will have an impact on long-term poverty. All of our activities are linked to immediate literacy outputs and all our activities are based on research-based methods. For example, research is clear that people do not become more literate simply by exposing them to books, or even by having them read books. The research (Report of National reading Panel, 2000) argues that students should be explicitly taught skills in reading fluency, reading comprehension, vocabulary and writing…all of which our solutions does. According to John Hattie (Influences on Student Learning, 1999), “the most powerful single moderator that enhances achievement is feedback,” which is why our solution incorporates formative, not summative, assessment. Our solution does not rely on computer algorithms to guide learners; rather it relies on learner control because large amount of research on the subject of student agency shows that “the degree to which students learn how to control their own learning … is highly related to outcomes (Visible Learning, 2009).

The second component of our theory of change is universally accepted, but it also has a research base. According to the World Literacy Foundation, illiteracy costs the global economy $1.5 trillion annually. A briefing paper from the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) concluded there is an undisputed that there is a connection between literacy and poverty.

The existing Kiswahili content was field tested in a school in Tanzania. Response to the activities was positive: “The activities were definitely engaging. The most engaged learners were the older girls (6-8 years old), who were able to properly do the activities. Despite the fact that younger learners found the majority of the activities difficult, they enjoyed playing them. Response to learner control was also positive: “After having been introduced to the different activities the learners were comfortable to continue choosing the ones they liked the most.”

Our solution is completely research-based, that is, the methods we employ are themselves research-based. We looked to research for instructional methods that have been proven to be successful and then created a technology solution based on those methods: (1) family learning, (2) peer learning, (3) formative assessment, (4) learner control, and (5) avoidance of distracting animations. We have assembled the research upon which are technology is based at this URL: https://www.familylearningcompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ResearchPapers.pdf.

Many of our implementations will involve collaboration with organizations that provide their own pre- and post-tests. In these situations, we will have independently-acquired data on increase in reading levels based upon standardized tests. In addition, we have already submitted a number of “efficacy test” proposals to government agencies and foundations. These proposals provide for a systematic, tear-long study of the efficacy of Interactive Family Literacy conducted by a university-level researcher.

In addition, Interactive Family Literacy has its own built-in record-keeping system enable us to measure success in a number of ways. First, we measure success in terms of the number of families registering the software. Our five-year projections include serving 500,000 families.

Second, we measure success in terms of the number of family members using the software. Our five-year projections including 1,000,000 family members using the software. Third, we measure success in terms of the quantitative use of the software. We consider Interactive Family Literacy software a success if children average one and one-half hours per week and adults average thirty minutes per week. Finally, we measure success in terms of the number of skills (that is, activities) learners have mastered. We consider Interactive Family Literacy software a success if learners acquire and average of fifty green stars.

The Family Learning Company is a next generation education software company addressing the most important problem in our economy—the epidemic of functional illiteracy—by leveraging the most powerful driver of economic development: family-based ambition.

The research questions we would like LEAP fellow to help us answer are based upon our go to market strategy. Our customers include:

1. Government Agencies: responsible for education equity, for workforce development and for family and community development. These agencies sometimes work directly with families, and sometimes partner with school districts for service delivery.
2. Non-Profits: There are over 2 million non-profit organizations in the United States, and many focus on family development, community development and education.
3. Corporations: Corporations are our best long-term source of revenue since most functionally literate adults in the U.S. are employees, and companies have money. Corporations gain employee productivity from improved literacy, they gain improved safety, and they gain reduced turnover and hiring costs.

Our first two customers are government agencies (state departments of education). We have three verbal agreements, also from state agencies (state department of education, school district, and public library). As a result, the research questions are related to our market ing and sales efforts with nonprofits and corporations:

• What is our value proposition for nonprofits? What is our value proposition for corporations?
• What is the most appropriate marketing approach for nonprofits? What is the most appropriate marketing approach for corporations?
• What is the most appropriate sales strategy for nonprofits? What I the most appropriate sales strategy for corporations?

The potential deliverables that would be useful to our organization as outputs of the LEAP sprint are answers to these research questions that take into consideration our current answers to these questions, all of which have been inadequate. First, the deliverables include an analysis of our existing value propositions, marketing approaches, and sales strategies and why they have failed. Second, the deliverables include proposed new value propositions, marketing approaches, and sales strategies based on the research conducted by the LEAP fellows. These deliverables are both concrete and realistic within the constraints of the LEAP fellowship project and extremely useful to our organization if successfully completed.

The successful outcome of this project allow you to achieve our five-year financial goals, which are based on generating revenue from all three types of customers: governments, nonprofits, and corporations. We have already demonstrated that we have an appropriate value proposition, marketing approach and sales strategy for our initial customer type:  government agencies. The LEAP project would enhance our organization’s 5-year plan by enabling us to quickly and effectively develop appropriate value propositions, marketing approaches, and sales strategies for our remain two customer types: nonprofits and corporations.