Ello Launches Storytime, New Version of AI Reading App Where Kids Create Their Own Stories
30 Septiembre 2024 - 10:05AM
Ello, developer of the world’s most advanced AI reading app, just
released a new feature where children can create their own books.
Ello is a fully digital AI reading companion that harnesses
proprietary, industry-leading child speech technology to
democratize personalized reading instruction at scale. Leveraging
the world’s largest child speech data set and the largest library
of decodable children’s books, Ello uses advancements in artificial
intelligence technology to support parents with struggling readers
for a small fraction of what a reading tutor would cost. Ello
listens to a child read and provides motivation and coaching
alongside a progression of phonics lessons and decodable books
which span reading levels from Kindergarten through 3rd Grade.
Now, with the new “Ello Storytime” feature, kids can create
their own books by picking their favorite settings, characters, and
plots. Ello takes these choices and creates a story with practice
reading words tailored to the child’s level. During the interactive
“Storytime” experience, the child practices new vocabulary and
phonics skills out loud while Ello reads the personalized
story.
Before launching, Ello’s engineering team spent months testing
Storytime for safety. “AI-generated content presents immense
opportunities for children to have personalized, engaging
experiences, but it also comes with risks,” commented Catalin Voss,
co-founder and CTO of Ello, who led the technical development of
Storytime. “We have conducted extensive safety tests and human
reviews on thousands of books and images generated using AI. While
this is of course an ambitious step, we have guardrails in place to
make sure that Storytime will be safe and appropriate for children
– including giving children a predetermined set of story options,
instead of letting them freestyle.”
Unlike other Generative AI tools for children to write stories,
Storytime books fit into a scope and sequence of Science of Reading
phonics instruction. For example–Angela, in first grade, is
practicing her “ch” sound with Ello this week. She asks Ello to
create a story about a cat making friends at school. Ello will
write this story for Angela, strategically place in words like
“chair” and “cheer,” and prompt Angela to practice reading those
words out loud on the page.
“We are so excited to bring our newest version of Ello to
families,” said Dr. Elizabeth Adams, Co-founder and CXO of Ello.
“Giving kids some control over the content they are reading helps
to support the child’s motivation to read by reflecting their
interests and lives. Our GenAI technology makes it possible to
create these books quickly, and we are now able to build books that
combine the important phonics skills kids need to become strong
readers with natural language text that gives them access to more
advanced vocabulary and storylines. In Ello Storytime, kids can
practice new words out loud which are relevant to that week’s
phonics lesson, and also listen to Ello read to them, much the way
they would with a 1:1 reading coach.”
About the Ello Reading AppEllo is powered by
Adaptive Learn, its state-of-the-art AI system that understands,
adapts and responds to a child just as a teacher or reading coach
would, using principles backed by the Science of Reading to create
a fun and educational journey for children in grades K-3.
For $14.99/month, the Ello subscription app offers families
access to reading coaching which often costs hundreds of
dollars–and families who receive government assistance can qualify
for a discounted price of $2.99/month. The Ello app works on
iPhones and iPads running iOS 14 and newer.
Outside of the subscription app, Ello has made its library of
decodable children’s books available online for free, and has also
partnered with low-income schools to offer the subscription for
free.
About ElloEllo is helping to solve childhood
illiteracy by scaling 1:1 instruction to maximize the learning
potential of all children, regardless of resources. Its first
product is the world’s most advanced reading companion, powered by
proprietary speech recognition and generative AI. It listens,
understands, and engages with children to teach them critical
reading skills as they read out loud. To date, over 700K children’s
books have been read on the Ello platform, which serves tens of
thousands of families with more than 1,000 decodable books
available in the Ello library. Ello is founded by a team of experts
in education, childhood development and artificial intelligence,
and backed by investors including Y Combinator, Goodwater, Project
A and Homebrew. Learn more at https://ello.com.
Kerry Metzdorf Big Swing
Communications978-463-2575kerry@big-swing.com
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at
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