Ello, the developer of the world’s most advanced AI reading app, has recently introduced “Ello Storytime,” a unique feature that allows children to create their books. This newly launched tool will enable kids to create their own books by picking their favourite settings, characters, and plots. Ello takes these choices and creates a story by practising 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.
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 most extensive child speech data set and the largest library of decodable children’s books, the platform uses advancements in artificial intelligence technology to support parents with struggling readers for a small fraction of what a reading tutor would cost. It 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.
Speaking about the latest development, Catalin Voss, Co-founder & CTO of Ello, who led the technical development of Storytime, said:
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. We have conducted extensive safety tests and human reviews on thousands of books and images generated using AI. While this is an ambitious step, we have guardrails to ensure 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, in First Grade, Angela is practising her “ch” sound with Ello this week. She asks Ello to create a story about a cat making friends at school. The app will write this story for Angela, strategically place words like “chair” and “cheer,” and prompt Angela to practice reading those words out loud on the page.
Dr. Elizabeth Adams, Co-founder and CXO of Ello, also added:
We are so excited to bring our newest version of Ello to families. Giving kids some control over their reading content helps support their motivation to read by reflecting on their interests and lives. Our GenAI technology makes it possible to create these books quickly, and we can now build books that combine the essential 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.
Ello was founded by a team of experts in education, childhood development, and artificial intelligence and is backed by investors including Y Combinator, Goodwater, Project A, and Homebrew. The Ello platform, which serves tens of thousands of families and has over 1,000 decodable books in its library, has read over 700,000 children’s books.
