Hi, I'm Daniel, and I'm very excited to talk to you today
about Duolingo ABC.
By now, you have probably heard of Duolingo's mission,
which is to develop the best education in the world
and make it universally available.
We at Duolingo ABC thought very hard
about how we can contribute to this very important mission,
and we decided to add this one word to our mission:
which is to develop the best literacy education in the world
and make it universally available.
This is Duolingo ABC's mission.
"So, Daniel, are you telling me that Duolingo has created
a language learning app for kids?"
Not quite.
What we have built is a literacy app,
meaning we teach kids how to read in their native language.
It is an app designed by literacy experts
for kids ages three to eight years old
and it is currently available for English speakers
on iOS and Android devices.
Now, why does this matter?
Let me read you this first quote.
"Academic success, as defined by high school graduation,
can be predicted with reasonable accuracy
by knowing someone's reading skill
at the end of third grade."
Now, I was born and raised in Guatemala,
so when I hear the words "third grade," it means absolutely nothing to me.
So, to give you some context,
third-graders are roughly eight to nine years old.
Put this into context.
You can predict an eight or nine-year-old's academic success
by looking at their reading skills.
Literacy matters.
Early literacy matters a lot.
The second data point:
60% of kids globally
don't achieve minimum reading proficiency.
Ouch! That's very rough.
60% of kids don't achieve minimum reading proficiency.
This is one of the biggest motivators for what we're trying to do.
So, as we thought about how we can create an experience
to help alleviate this problem,
we thought about starting with kids.
So, let me give you some context.
I have four kids under the age of ten.
Here's my six-year-old and my eight-year-old.
And kids, as you know, are a lot of work,
but they're also a lot of fun.
And they live in this beautiful world
with unicorns and rainbows.
Everything is sparkly
and you can have all-you-can-eat ice cream and all-you-can-eat doughnuts.
Quite frankly, it makes me very jealous
that I don't get to live in this world where my daughters live.
Well, when we were thinking about creating an app,
we did not want to create an app that felt like taking your medicine.
We wanted to create an app that was worthy to be called an app for kids.
We wanted kids, when they opened the app, to think the following three words:
this is fun.
So how do you create a fun experience?
We started with our cast of characters, that you already know,
but when they were younger.
So we have Eddy and Zari and Bea,
but when they were kids.
As you open the app,
the kids are introduced with a fun story about Duo and FoFo
and how they were loading a bunch of books into this giant blimp,
as they were delivering those books into Duo's library.
On their way, FoFo the Bear cannot wait to open the door and let the books fall.
"Not yet, FoFo!", says Duo.
Obviously, FoFo the Bear cannot wait.
He opens the door and the books fall all over town.
At this point, kids are tasked to help Duo and FoFo
find and pick up all the books.
In each building,
kids are exposed to increasing levels of difficulty.
As they open and enter those buildings,
they are exposed to a bunch of fun challenges
in books that they can read at any time.
As kids collect books, they get added into their library
where they can go back and read at any time.
We have spent a lot of effort
creating lots and lots of original,
fun, effective and safe content for kids.
Kids are also exposed to a bunch of different fun games
that teach anywhere from phonics to reading comprehension.
Now, we have created an app worthy to be called an app for kids.
And the world agrees.
Over the past three years, we won a lot of awards.
But most importantly for us
was the following question:
Does it work?
Are we actually teaching kids to read?
To help answer this question,
the Education Development Center recruited 105 kids,
ages four to five years old.
They tasked kids with using ABC for nine weeks.
They assessed the literacy skills of these kids
before and after using Duolingo ABC
and, as bloggers say online, the results will blow your mind!
The first result is that kids improved their literacy scores by 28%.
This is the same improvement as two months of kindergarten.
The second result, that I'm very excited about,
is that parents reported that kids showed more interest in reading.
We create an experience that not only teaches kids to read,
but teaches kids to love to read.
This is a gift they can take for the rest of their lives.
So we know kids love the app
and we know parents love the app because it's effective,
but there's a third group of people we noticed that also love the app.
Teachers.
And there's a few reasons why teachers love Duolingo ABC.
First off, learning the sounds and letters, like M says "mm,"
is a huge part of early literacy learning.
Learning letters and sounds takes a lot of practice
and we at Duolingo know how to make learning fun.
The second one is that kids are motivated to learn in different ways.
So ABC gives teachers a free tool
for engaging and motivating diverse learners.
And I mean free.
No ads, no subscription required and completely safe.
Another reason why teachers love us
is it that ABC takes kids step by step along a path
that teaches fundamental skills in game-like lessons and stories
where they can put their skills into action.
Last but not least,
we are aligned with Common Core Standards for foundational reading.
Now, as I conclude my presentation, I want to pause
and acknowledge the very difficult years we have gone through.
Parents and caregivers have felt
this increasing pressure around their kids' education
as schools have opened and closed and opened and closed again.
Teachers acting like superheroes, going above and beyond,
helping kids all over the world.
We hope that Duolingo ABC provides
some of the much-needed relief that you deserve.
So download the app today.
Give it a whirl and reach out to us through our feedback forms in the app.
We would love to hear from you.
I know that together we can make a difference
in improving literacy rates throughout the world.
Thank you.