Litnerd is an online reading club program with a weekly live meetup to help students make reading a lifelong habit. Think of us as “book club meets gaming”. New books go live weekly, and each book has movie adaptations, music, reading courseware, mini lessons with a virtual teacher and worksheets. There are reading tournaments every month to recognize the top reader. The goal of our app is to create a fun and engaging way of cultivating a child’s natural curiosity by bringing the subject matter to life (movie adaptation of books with real actors, cartoon animation, enacted experiences) and through gamification—our community is obsessed with earning “Litcoin” (yup, we actually did this and it really works!) and winning monthly tournaments.
Here’s a video that shows how Litnerd works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSVjWi-rE8k. Here’s a video I made for parents, summarizing what’s new with our product: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mniVUWx6tvM, and here is an older video that gives you a quick demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1wdk9ofb5w.
When we did our Launch HN back in 2021 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28300640), we got two prominent themes of feedback. One was B2C access—you asked us to open the app for parents to buy directly rather than selling it only to schools. The other was that it gave you massive Diamond Age vibes. I read the Diamond Age. It gave me chills. Thank you!
Originally, Litnerd was only sold to schools, and teachers had to administer the product in classroom time. We were also streaming live actors into the classroom to reenact books and build interest and fun.
Now, our program is a standalone web app used by both schools and parents (B2C access is live—thanks HN!) We no longer stream live actors into classrooms, but rather have films and cartoons in-app to bring the book to life, all filmed in our Brooklyn studio. We also have original soundtracks for each book, in both the app and on Spotify.
Our product is now used by kids primarily after school hours—and the average kid is spending 30 minutes in the app daily! Parents in our first B2C cohort commented on how this is the only educational app their child wants to use without being pushed by a parent/teacher. With just 4 months of Litnerd usage, students improved comprehension by 72% and phonics improvement by 48%. Your child is auto-enrolled in a cohort when they sign up. They are also auto-enrolled in the current reading tournament of the month. The goal is to earn the most amount of Litcoin so that you can win tournaments and go shopping in the Litnerd Store. To earn Litcoin, your child does 3 things. First, they complete at least 15 minutes of daily reading. Second, they have daily reading tasks, such as quizzes and worksheets to build vocabulary and comprehension. Third, they attend a weekly live (virtual) meetup with their cohort.
Why a live meetup? The Litnerd Reading Club is a community experience with a weekly meetup (if you miss the weekly meetup, you miss out on a lot of Litcoin earning potential). This ensures kids using the app feel like they are in a classroom or pod experience. Each child is entered into a cohort when they enroll, and each week your child will meet virtually with other kids in their cohort and discuss the book they are reading with our special guest (which might be the author of the book, an actor from the movie adaptation of the book, a literacy coach, etc). Here is a video to show what happens in these cohort sessions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOcybwyGelo
We have so much more to build out our version of the Primer from Diamond Age and inspire millions of kids, just like Nell, to fall in love with learning. We are working on turning the entire app into a game-ux interface, where kids can explore different cities in the app and read books/go through materials at their own pace and that the app will adapt to their interests. We also have our eye on adding other subjects and older grades in the future.
As always, I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on how you foster reading amongst your children! I am excited to hear your feedback and ideas to help us inspire the next generation of readers.
These numbers have real impact. What the impact data I shared above will not show you is that our kids parents comment on the confidence their child develops after 2 months on the app. How they go from never raising their hand to speak in the weekly live to being eager to answer every question and be part of all discussions about the book in the weekly live meetup with their cohort in the app.
These numbers have real impact. Kids in the app are not rewarded with any use or monetary prize beyond their first tournament. Yet after the first month, reading levels do not drop and growth in phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary and comprehension still keep increasing (students have to do A LOT of work in the app beyond just reading. There is full reading courseware with quizzes, worksheets and mini lessons - our courseware is built on the Science Of Reading philosophy).
These numbers have real impact. Most of our parents could never get their children to take up reading. We don't just motivate kids with flashy use promotional tournament prizes. We turn movies into full n books and cartoons. All shot and filmed in our downtown Brooklyn studio. We have directors, producers, actors, recording artists and more - all to bring a book to life on screen. Children unlock episodes by doing the required daily reading and reading courseware. We are committed to making kids feel learning is fun. THAT is the intrinsic motivation we see as our duty to cultivate.
To reference The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (because why not), all of these concerns were part of the Primer's issues with Nell in the Diamond Age. Yet, when Miranda (via the Primer) realized Nell was not intrinsically motivated, they used tactics like bringing the subject matter to life enacted experiences or gamification like solving puzzles to motivate her. And in the end, it worked. She went from being a girl in extreme poverty with no interest in learning to becoming successful and the leader of her Phyle (tribe).
We are creating enabling environments to promote learning. It works. It is grounded in the neuroscience of motivation. As for the rest, I will let the philosophers philosophize.
Speaking as a parent, money seems like a wrong metric for gamification of reading - especially at that age and those amounts.
Perhaps you have insights to justify?
Having said that, we reward users with our own in app currency, Litcoin, after the first promotional usd prize. The reason it works is that after a month with us, kids value Litcoin and care for it more than the usd reward.
Past winners videos: https://www.litnerd.com/post/a-new-litnerd-reading-club-tour...
https://www.litnerd.com/post/litnerd-reading-club-tournament...
Won't the results of classic intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation studies apply?
I'd imagine if reading (and learning in general) is extrinsically driven, one might move the needle say from 0->5. Once the driver is removed, I'm having a hard time seeing it succeed.
I do not have studies or large scale data to back it, but my boys (12, 17) have exhibited the drop-off in interest once the extrinsic motivation and/or peer group vanishes.
Perhaps it's not in your business interest to do so, but it'd be very useful to understand the longer term implications of a program like this.
I do not mean to discourage you - just curious - and wishing I could take back my tiger parenting altogether.
- kids love any stories that involve witches and magical powers. I guess the Harry Potter phenomenon still reigns supreme.
- kids love Roblox and we learned A LOT about community engagement by incorporating these elements into Litnerd.
- kids are competitive!! The Leader Board is a huge incentive for kids to keep pushing on the app.
- kids prefer LitQuizzes over any other way of earning Litcoin. Something about immediate gratification compared to, for example, worksheets that are manually graded by our team so you don’t see the Litcoin tally for this until grading is done.