Learn With Homer, the #1 Learn-to-Read Program, Available Free to Educators

NEW YORK, August 19, 2016 - Did you know that one-in-four children grow up without learning how to read well? In the United States, students that don't read proficiently by the end of third grade are four times as likely to drop out of school, and two-thirds of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of fourth grade will end up in jail or on welfare. Every U.S. president has identified tackling the literacy gap as paramount to the country's success, yet there is still a literacy crisis. 

Learn With Homer, the #1 Learn-to-Read program and app, is working to solve this problem. Its founders are on a mission to teach the world's children how to read, one step at a time, one child at a time, with the help of a tablet. Learn With Homer works by cultivating a love for reading with a fun, easy to use program that has been shown to boost early reading scores by 74 percent. 

Throughout the 2016-2017 school year, Learn With Homer is free to qualified and verified teachers and librarians to support instruction with progress tracking for up to 32 individual students. 

Families interested in joining the fight to end the literacy crisis can help support Learn with Homer in low income schools with a purchase of a family subscription. 

A recent study showed that by using Learn With Homer just 15 minutes a day over a six week period nearly doubled reading scores on the Test of Preschool Early Literacy, making it extremely effective for whole and small-group instruction, resource rooms and libraries as the most reliable and effective app for teaching a child to read.

Educators interested in using Learn With Homer may obtain the program free-of-charge through the Learn With Homer website learnwithhomer.com. Educators may apply online at learnwithhomer.com/teachers with a valid school email address. 

"At Learn with Homer we are leading a revolution to teach the world's children to read," said Stephanie Dua, founder and CEO of Learn With Homer. "As educators, we were sick and tired of wringing our hands over the literacy crisis so we decided to get down to business and build a scalable solution." 

By providing a complete start-to-finish reading program with more than 1,000 fun and easy-to-use reading lessons, including a library of 200+ stories, songs and decodable readers, Learn With Homer is a scientifically-proven, phonetically-based program that brings the best literacy instruction to families and schools without the need of a trained teacher to supervise instruction.

Learn with Homer was shown in a double blind research study conducted by the Susan B. Neuman, former U.S. assistant secretary of education, to increase reading scores in preschool and kindergarten aged children by more than 74 percent in just six weeks. Using the program in conjunction with classroom instruction helps form an ever stronger foundation of reading. 

Learn With Homer uses animation and audio to model precise sounds of each phoneme -- the sounds letters make -- and relies on voice recording by the child. This enables children to hear the sounds of letters, see the movements of the mouth as it makes the sound, then to record themselves making the sound and to play that back.

Learn with Homer's native mobile design integrates the best early literacy pedagogy and the best of game design to create a seamless learning experience for children. The students thought they were playing a game when really, every activity was carefully designed to result in maximum learning.

Amanda Highly, a media coordinator at Burke Public Schools in North Carolina stated, "I have loved having this wonderful resource right at my fingertips! I first started using Learn With Homer about three years ago as a first time media coordinator. I see classes ranging from pre-k to fifth grade, so I was so thrilled to find a resource that not only helped me to create interactive, multimedia lessons, but that could be used across multiple grade levels. The content is rich and correlates with what the students are learning in their classrooms. The ability to have the information read aloud allows the younger students to learn and enjoy it as well. I have used the Learn with Homer app on my iPad for the past few years, but am excited for the new website they are offering. It provides even more tools and information than the app, especially for parents and teachers. I have had several teachers walk in the library and see it on my Smartboard and ask me about how they can use it in their classrooms! Everyone is so impressed, including the kids!"

Learn With Homer was developed by educators and literacy experts and built on leading scientific research by the National Reading Panel and is one of the most comprehensive foundational phonics-based reading system available on mobile and the web.

"Technology and learning go hand-in-hand today," noted Dua. "Kids know how to use apps on phones and tablets from a very early age, so our goal was not only to create the first comprehensive literacy app, but also to deliver for parents and educators what we know to be the best practices in early education in a way that was beautiful but not over gamified."

About Learn With Homer

Learn With Homer, the #1 Learn-to-Read program for children ages two to eight, is teaching the world's children to read. Learn With Homer has the vision is to transform the academic trajectory of every child that uses the Learn With Homer program by cultivating a love for reading with a fun, easy to use program that boosts early reading scores. Learn With Homer is also nurturing, supportive and fun! Reading is the single most important skill for a child's success in school and life and Learn With Homer is the #1 Learn-to-Read app that is a research-based and proven apps to boost early reading scores by 74 percent. The app has received a five-star rating from Common Sense Media and is the winner of the Teacher's Choice Award and was designed by teachers and experts and based on educational research from Harvard and Stanford Universities. Learn With Homer provides a step-by-step method proven to work and helps struggling or new readers accelerate their reading skills. To learn more, visit learnwithhomer.com or download from the iTunes app store or follow on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and G+.