4 ms·

Full disclosure: I worked on a small project with Ello / Catalin a few years ago. At the time of writing, the sentiment in this post is that this is a terrible

by dcx 3mo ago

Full disclosure: I worked on a small project with Ello / Catalin a few years ago. At the time of writing, the sentiment in this post is that this is a terrible idea, and that kids need human tutors. The latter is 100% true. But also, you might want to know some facts about the state of children's literacy in the US (Ello is a math and reading tutor): 1. We're in crisis. As of 2025, 40% of fourth graders are reading below basic levels [1]. 2. There's a massive teacher shortage. 2025 US state data shows ~400k teacher positions either unfilled or underqualified [2] – over 10% of the workforce. 3. Bloom's 2-sigma shows that 1-1 tutoring delivers outcomes at the 90th percentile of classroom teaching. Early research is finding that AI can deliver some of this benefit [3]. 4. This can't always be solved by parents: 54% of US adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level, and 20% are below 5th-grade level [4]. At Ello, I heard stories of children figuring out they were behind at school, and when given the app, they holed themselves up in their room and used it to get themselves caught up. And then they could read! Can you imagine falling behind at this critical juncture, and being stuck illiterate while your friends grow past you? We're currently setting kids up for lives of shame and deprivation. My take: this really is a life-changing technology. And we need this problem solved. Democracy doesn't function without an educated populace. [1] https://www.nagb.gov/news-and-events/news-releases/2025/nations-report-card-decline-in-reading-progress-in-math.html https://www.nagb.gov/news-and-events/news-releases/2025/nati... [2] https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/overview-teacher-shortages-2025-factsheet https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/overview-teacher... [3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666920X25000402 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666920X2... [4] https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-literacy-statistics https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-liter...

mlmonkey 3mo ago
> We're in crisis. As of 2025, 40% of fourth graders are reading below basic levels How much of this crisis is due to the social engineering being attempted in school districts across America? Case in point: San Francisco schools decided a couple of years ago that they would no longer teach Algebra in 8th grade. Why? Because too many kids of a certain demographic were failing it. So let's just not teach it! No class, so nobody fails it, right? It took a proposition on a ballot (i.e., an election) [1] to force the SFUSD to put Algebra back in 8th grade! I have kids in SFUSD. It often feels like the SFUSD does not care about the average and above average kids; all they focus on is the bottom layer. And even there, they do a terrible job. There was a student who got straight F's in each and every class, and still managed to be a senior in High School! [2] [1] https://ballotpedia.org/San_Francisco,_California,_Proposition_G,_Declaration_of_Policy_Urging_San_Francisco_Unified_School_District_to_Offer_Algebra_1_to_Students_by_Eighth_Grade_Measure_(March_2024) https://ballotpedia.org/San_Francisco,_California,_Propositi... [2] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/A-child-left-behind-SF-student-failed-every-12789302.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/A-child-left-beh...
- dcx 3mo ago
  The explanation I've heard is that the national curriculum switched away from phonics and to a teaching method called "balanced literacy", and this went terribly [1]. IIRC it involved teaching kids to recognize words by their overall visual shape. I believe this is what mature readers do, but the problem is that for this to work, one first needs to have bootstrapped a robust vocabulary. And that happens via being able to sound out words, i.e. phonics. (I'm not sure whether Cato is generally reliable, but FYI there are lots of other writeups online on the same topic. It was the first non-paywalled and reasonably complete one I found) [1] https://www.cato.org/blog/phonics-failure-public-schools https://www.cato.org/blog/phonics-failure-public-schools
  - cyphar 3mo ago
    I've heard a lot of people argue that phonics are vastly superior to "whole word" techniques, and maybe that's true -- I'm definitely not an expert, though it is how I was taught English in Australia ~30 years ago. However, I find it quite hard to believe that it is the most important cause of the modern literacy rate issues in the US. Why? Because "whole word" teaching was the conventional wisdom since at least the 1950s[1,2]! Most articles on the topic reference the book Why Johnny Can't Read (1955) which was written to argue in favour of phonics as a response to (perceived?) child illiteracy at the time and claims (page 1): > Since the 1920s, most American schoolchildren have been taught to memorize the "appearance" of words, one after another, like Chinese characters, without reference to the sounds of the individual letters that make up each word. The reintroduction of phonics in the US first started as "balanced literacy" (phonics and "whole word", ideally tailored to students) in the 1990s and "science-based reading" (basically just phonics) properly started in the 2000s[1,2], which means that the argument that phonics would improve reading scores is on quite shaky ground (most children in the US today get taught phonics and most people >40 were probably taught with "whole word" teaching). [1]: https://wearealigned.org/brief-history-literacy-instruction-america/ https://wearealigned.org/brief-history-literacy-instruction-... [2]: https://www.lexialearning.com/blog/the-science-of-reading-vs-balanced-literacy-the-history-of-the-reading-wars https://www.lexialearning.com/blog/the-science-of-reading-vs...
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
havercosine 3mo ago
Thanks for taking time to write this. HN is showing (expected) dismissing attitude towards this idea. That tells me it might work :) ! Folks here are wildly overestimating (or ignoring!) how many adults are qualified to be good teachers and how many of them further have enough incentives (money, time, resources) to do it well. Its a _very_ small number. In my part of the world, "become a teacher" is often a job advised to people who are not able to find other jobs or are looking for a safe way back after career break. None of them are looking forward to engaging 5 year old with life's curiosities. To add the famous quip from WorryDream/Bret Victor : most of the teachers teaching calculus etc. have never ever used it in real life. Working parents with STEM backgrounds likely know that schools are glorified day-cares and probability of your child having access to a life changing tutor is very low. I tried building an edtech venture frustrated precisely with these problems. Failed, but would def do it again with AI in the mix. I'm for one rooting for this to succeed!
- gverrilla 3mo ago
  Pay your teachers better.
  - cognitiveinline 3mo ago
    How? Taxing you higher?
    - gverrilla 3mo ago
      It's a matter of distribution, not scarcity.
      - cognitiveinline 3mo ago
        ok. You've rephrased something. But do you have a specific solution? Because the OP seem to do.
        jplusequalt 3mo ago
anonymid 3mo ago
https://dlants.me/bloom.html https://dlants.me/bloom.html Blooms 2 sigma, like many studies that are thrown about, is not as much of a slam dunk as people claim that it is. Have you read the paper or any efforts to replicate?
UncleMeat 3mo ago
This is not how I want the world to be. "Wow, our state institutions are struggling in ways X, Y, and Z. Rather than addressing these problems we will shuffle them to an unaccountable third party that will provide a necessarily worse substitute using the hot technology of the day."

by dcx 3mo ago

mlmonkey 3mo ago

> We're in crisis. As of 2025, 40% of fourth graders are reading below basic levels How much of this crisis is due to the social engineering being attempted in school districts across America? Case in point: San Francisco schools decided a couple of years ago that they would no longer teach Algebra in 8th grade. Why? Because too many kids of a certain demographic were failing it. So let's just not teach it! No class, so nobody fails it, right? It took a proposition on a ballot (i.e., an election) [1] to force the SFUSD to put Algebra back in 8th grade! I have kids in SFUSD. It often feels like the SFUSD does not care about the average and above average kids; all they focus on is the bottom layer. And even there, they do a terrible job. There was a student who got straight F's in each and every class, and still managed to be a senior in High School! [2] [1] https://ballotpedia.org/San_Francisco,_California,_Proposition_G,_Declaration_of_Policy_Urging_San_Francisco_Unified_School_District_to_Offer_Algebra_1_to_Students_by_Eighth_Grade_Measure_(March_2024) https://ballotpedia.org/San_Francisco,_California,_Propositi... [2] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/A-child-left-behind-SF-student-failed-every-12789302.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/A-child-left-beh...

dcx 3mo ago
The explanation I've heard is that the national curriculum switched away from phonics and to a teaching method called "balanced literacy", and this went terribly [1]. IIRC it involved teaching kids to recognize words by their overall visual shape. I believe this is what mature readers do, but the problem is that for this to work, one first needs to have bootstrapped a robust vocabulary. And that happens via being able to sound out words, i.e. phonics. (I'm not sure whether Cato is generally reliable, but FYI there are lots of other writeups online on the same topic. It was the first non-paywalled and reasonably complete one I found) [1] https://www.cato.org/blog/phonics-failure-public-schools https://www.cato.org/blog/phonics-failure-public-schools
- cyphar 3mo ago
  I've heard a lot of people argue that phonics are vastly superior to "whole word" techniques, and maybe that's true -- I'm definitely not an expert, though it is how I was taught English in Australia ~30 years ago. However, I find it quite hard to believe that it is the most important cause of the modern literacy rate issues in the US. Why? Because "whole word" teaching was the conventional wisdom since at least the 1950s[1,2]! Most articles on the topic reference the book Why Johnny Can't Read (1955) which was written to argue in favour of phonics as a response to (perceived?) child illiteracy at the time and claims (page 1): > Since the 1920s, most American schoolchildren have been taught to memorize the "appearance" of words, one after another, like Chinese characters, without reference to the sounds of the individual letters that make up each word. The reintroduction of phonics in the US first started as "balanced literacy" (phonics and "whole word", ideally tailored to students) in the 1990s and "science-based reading" (basically just phonics) properly started in the 2000s[1,2], which means that the argument that phonics would improve reading scores is on quite shaky ground (most children in the US today get taught phonics and most people >40 were probably taught with "whole word" teaching). [1]: https://wearealigned.org/brief-history-literacy-instruction-america/ https://wearealigned.org/brief-history-literacy-instruction-... [2]: https://www.lexialearning.com/blog/the-science-of-reading-vs-balanced-literacy-the-history-of-the-reading-wars https://www.lexialearning.com/blog/the-science-of-reading-vs...

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

havercosine 3mo ago

Thanks for taking time to write this. HN is showing (expected) dismissing attitude towards this idea. That tells me it might work :) ! Folks here are wildly overestimating (or ignoring!) how many adults are qualified to be good teachers and how many of them further have enough incentives (money, time, resources) to do it well. Its a _very_ small number. In my part of the world, "become a teacher" is often a job advised to people who are not able to find other jobs or are looking for a safe way back after career break. None of them are looking forward to engaging 5 year old with life's curiosities. To add the famous quip from WorryDream/Bret Victor : most of the teachers teaching calculus etc. have never ever used it in real life. Working parents with STEM backgrounds likely know that schools are glorified day-cares and probability of your child having access to a life changing tutor is very low. I tried building an edtech venture frustrated precisely with these problems. Failed, but would def do it again with AI in the mix. I'm for one rooting for this to succeed!

gverrilla 3mo ago
Pay your teachers better.
- cognitiveinline 3mo ago
  How? Taxing you higher?
  - gverrilla 3mo ago
    It's a matter of distribution, not scarcity.
    - cognitiveinline 3mo ago
      ok. You've rephrased something. But do you have a specific solution? Because the OP seem to do.
      - jplusequalt 3mo ago

anonymid 3mo ago

https://dlants.me/bloom.html https://dlants.me/bloom.html Blooms 2 sigma, like many studies that are thrown about, is not as much of a slam dunk as people claim that it is. Have you read the paper or any efforts to replicate?

UncleMeat 3mo ago

This is not how I want the world to be. "Wow, our state institutions are struggling in ways X, Y, and Z. Rather than addressing these problems we will shuffle them to an unaccountable third party that will provide a necessarily worse substitute using the hot technology of the day."