Stephanie Dua, founder of Homer Learning, announced at the 2016 ASU GSV Summit that she will be offering her award-winning early reading app, Homer Learn-to-Read, free of charge to teachers and librarians across the country.

The app usually goes for $7.99 per month, but Dua hopes free access to educators will help level the playing field in classrooms (a good percentage of the app’s users are English Language Learners).

Dua “wants to reduce the academically debilitating effects of word gaps between higher and lower-income youngsters and to help young students learn more at home,” said The 74.

Research has thus far backed the app’s ability to help children read. An NYU researcher found "found that children engaging with the app alone for 15 minutes per day over six weeks nearly doubled their reading proficiency on the Test of Preschool Early Literacy.” Many educators have already gotten on-board without not having to pay.

According to The 74, the app is already being used in over 10,000 classrooms.

The Homer Learn-to-Read program works by building "on phonemic awareness in developing letter and word recognition while also aiming to increase general knowledge, even for young ages.”

Educators told The 74 that this kind of curriculum progression resonates with students- even getting them excited about learning.

The offer of Homer Learn-to-Read for free to educators is just one of the many announcements to come out of the three-day ASU GSV Summit, an education technology conference in San Diego that will feature talks from education innovators like Bill Gates, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Carol Dweck and The 74’s own Campbell Brown, among many others

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Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

4/19/2016