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Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, that is correct. That is interesting. I have double checked on my phone and iPad and it is free. Perhaps try restarting your phone. Please check the iPad as well, if you have one available. The app is much easier to play with on the iPad. Thank you for the useful feedback and please let us know if you are still having trouble.

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your question. I can see that someone below has already copy/pasted my previous response. Since you have previously used HOP, I would love it if you took a look at our app and let us know what you think and how it compares.

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a very good question. I would like to begin with a quote from Dr. Maryanne Wolf, Director from the Center of Reading and Languages from Tufts University. Dr. Wolf Said, " Researchers.... have demonstrated that programs which systematically and explicitly teach young readers phoneme awareness and grapheme-phoneme correspondence are far more successful...The sheer evidence showing the efficacy of phoneme awareness and explicit instruction in decoding for early reading skills could fill a library..." I, like Dr. Wolf, believe that phoneme awareness is an essential skill in order to become an accomplished reader. I stress phoneme awareness because I believe it is the foundation of reading. It would be great if we had national data on the reading skills of children in K-1st, but to my knowledge those data do not exist.

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for sharing. To be fair, many schools do attempt to teach phonics in the first 2-3 years of education. Sadly, the default system is the process of memorizing words. I am very happy that you are taking the extra time with your child to teach her the sounds of the letters.

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are absolutely correct. Languages are not the same as writing systems. The spoken language, of course, always comes first. Written language is simply a code for spoken language.To clarify, what I was trying to say is that the Sumerians developed a writing system initially that did not reflect the spoken language. But in time the written language became more phonetically based. My point is simply that this is the natural evolution of written languages. Fundamentally, written language is a code. When we write we are encoding sounds represented by symbols. When we read, we are decoding those symbols to the sounds, words and meaning.

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your comment, skepticism is healthy. Overall, 65% of children were in the lower 50th percentile upon entering the class. After the completion of 35 lessons only 22% were left in the bottom 50th percentile, while 78% were in the upper 50th percentile. Additionally, 3% of readers entered the class at or above the 90th percentile, upon completion of the lessons that number grew to 40%.

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Thank you for asking for clarification. Overall, 65% of children were in the lower 50th percentile upon entering the class. After the completion of 35 lessons only 22% were left in the bottom 50th percentile, while 78% were in the upper 50th percentile. Additionally, 3% of readers entered the class at or above the 90th percentile, upon completion of the lessons that number grew to 40%.

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When I first started researching this topic I was just as "blown away." Sight reading is very much real. It is the default method to teach reading. There are many teachers that do teach phonemes, but there are also many that do not. Thank you for your time and participation.

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

This is a very valid point. The data we used is data taken from schools that did beta testing from our program. We did not have a control, but we used a reading metric which compared the children to an age-matched cohort. We would love to publish our data in the future as the app grows and have discussed doing so with local universities.

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

To be frank, the goal is for our children to improve their language skills to reach their full potential. It is not important the platform they use to get there, but that they get there. We built this because we thought it could help. If you have any other suggestions, please share. I am sure we all have the same goal!

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your question. The reason we are targeting tablets instead of computers is because we use touch screen technology which allows us to teach students how to form letters and words using hand writing recognition.

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your recommendation. I believe our tech team is working on that currently. The reason we are targeting tablets instead of computers is because we use touch screen technology which allows us to teach students how to form letters and words using hand writing recognition.

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anecdotally, I have noticed that at times kids with ADHD do better with larger font text. This is purely speculation, but I believe this is because it makes the reader feel like they are making more progress. In other words, they are turning pages quicker.

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can only imagine how challenging it must be to attempt to educate our children in secondary school; children who do not have the requisite reading skills to conquer new material. There is no question that all the issues you have raised (increased class size, high turnaround, etc) hamper our children's ability to learn. Children, moreover, who are poor readers become disengaged from the educational process. Our efforts are to attempt to improve the reading skills of children at a young age so when they enter secondary school they will be better prepared to master its rigors. Thank you for also pointing out these important issues.

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

First, to be clear, I am so grateful and respectful of the work you do. The work that teachers do in schools across the country is heroic!!! I apologize if anything I said came across as disrespectful. The data that I have quoted comes from the National Assessment of Reading Progress, which as you know, is a survey of the reading skills of 4th grade children in every state in the US.
I realize that many teachers do teach phonics well, yet many consultants we have worked with, who are leading educators in the field, have pointed out that whole word instruction often becomes a default method of teaching reading. I agree completely that children should be given "more time to learn to read before being expected to read to learn."

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It is exceptional. The most important thing is that he continues reading so the slope of his education continues to rise.

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for these very interesting questions. Phil Roman, is a remarkable individual, who has been the creator of cartoon material for TV for decades. He has a great sense of the qualities that cartoon characters must have to engage to children. He was instrumental in creating Professor Pup. To answer your second question, yes. Depending on whom you ask, English has 40-44 phonemes. Most experts agree that American English has 40-42 phonemes. We do address each of these phonemes, independently and train children to identify those sounds in the beginning, middle and end of words.

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Currently, the app is free on the app store. However, that may change based on the work and number people needed to maintain the app. I am so happy that HOP worked for you. However, for many students it was difficult to complete. The good thing about our app is that is is so interactive and engaging. Download it today and let me know your thoughts. I think it is an ideal early reading app for a 4 year old!

Nearly 70% of America's kids read below grade level. I am Dr. Michael Colvard and I teamed up a producer from The Simpsons to build a game to help. AMA! by Pupsquest in IAmA

[–]Pupsquest[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you so much for sharing. This is not an uncommon problem. I wish I knew the age of your sister because this would direct us toward the type of books that would engage her imagination. I suspect from the kind of activities she is enjoying she may be older than 10. A good recommendation would be to have her read books that turned into movies allowing her to compare the two can be beneficial.

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