Tom Sayer is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ello, the world's first virtual reading coach that works with real books.
Before Ello, Tom was the head of impact and adoption programs at Google for Education, where his team was responsible for ensuring that Google tools were used effectively in classrooms worldwide. He is on the advisory board of Education Reimagined, the movement builder of learner centered education. He has also worked as an intelligence officer, a product manager, founded an EdTech company (with Catalin), and has built a mini-golf course in Cambodia. Tom graduated from Cambridge University with first-class honors in maths and psychology and has an MBA and MA (Education) from Stanford. He has won the Lamor prize at Cambridge, the Queen’s medal at Sandhurst, the Intelligence top student award, and was a Siebel Scholar at the GSB. He loves running, rugby, and lives with his wife and son in Pennsylvania.
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Tom Sayer is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ello, the world's first virtual reading coach that works with real books.
Before Ello, Tom was the head of impact and adoption programs at Google for Education, where his team was responsible for ensuring that Google tools were used effectively in classrooms worldwide. He is on the advisory board of Education Reimagined, the movement builder of learner centered education. He has also worked as an intelligence officer, a product manager, founded an EdTech company (with Catalin), and has built a mini-golf course in Cambodia. Tom graduated from Cambridge University with first-class honors in maths and psychology and has an MBA and MA (Education) from Stanford. He has won the Lamor prize at Cambridge, the Queen’s medal at Sandhurst, the Intelligence top student award, and was a Siebel Scholar at the GSB. He loves running, rugby, and lives with his wife and son in Pennsylvania.
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Welcome to Season Eight of Edtech Insiders where we speak to educators, founders, investors, thought leaders and the industry experts who are shaping the global education technology industry. Every week we bring you the week in edtech. important updates from the Edtech field, including news about core technologies and issues we know will influence the sector like artificial intelligence, extended reality, education, politics, and more. We also conduct in depth interviews with a wide variety of Edtech thought leaders and bring you insights and conversations from ed tech conferences all around the world. Remember to subscribe, follow and tell your ed tech friends about the podcast and to check out the Edtech Insiders substack newsletter. Thanks for being part of the Edtech Insiders community enjoy the show. Tom Sayer is the Co-founder and CEO of Ello, the world's first virtual reading coach that works with real books before Ello. Tom was the head of impact and adoption programs at Google for Education, where his team was responsible for ensuring the Google tools were used effectively in classrooms worldwide. He is on the Advisory Board of Education Reimagined the movement builder of learner centered education. He's also worked as an intelligence officer, a product manager, he's founded an edtech company with Catalin Voss, and has built a mini golf course in Cambodia. Tom graduated from Cambridge University with first class honours in maths and psychology and has an MBA and an MA in education, a master's in education from Stanford. He's won the Lemoore prize at Cambridge the Queen's medal at Sandhurst, the intelligence Top Student Award and was a Seibel scholar at the GSB. He loves running rugby and lives with his wife and son in Pennsylvania. Tom Sayer, Welcome to Edtech Insiders.
Tom Sayer:Thanks for having me. I'm excited for this conversation
Alexander Sarlin:I am as well you know, I'm a huge fan of Ello. And it's doing incredibly interesting work in reading education. Before we get into our formal questions. Let me start by just asking you to explain what Ello is, how it works for reading education and how you and your co founder Catalin Voss got involved in making a company that does this.
Tom Sayer:And Elizabeth Adams have two co founders, Catalin and Elizabeth Elizabeth is, She's the brains behind what we actually need to do for kids. She's a clinical child psychologist and expert in everything child learning. Guess Ello is an AI reading coach and reading companion, it focuses on that independent, outloud reading that a child is supposed to do every day as part of their reading journey, to improve their fluency to improve their vocabulary, their comprehension, and Ello gives every child access to that supportive environment where they can they can do that fluency practice. And it started for us back in the pandemic, it was kind of late 2020. Elizabeth has a daughter, who at the time was six years old, she was in kindergarten, really struggling with reading, it was zoom school time. And it just wasn't clicking for Lily, Elizabeth Catalin and I were kind of playing with with a few ideas that we wanted to work on all focused around learner centered education might wait, this is clearly a burning problem. We spoke to the parents who say, this is just not going according to plan right now in the pandemic, but also more broadly, and you only have to look at the reading scores to see that there's, there's a big problem in this country with with literacy. And so we asked ourselves, well, what could we do if we could do anything? And like, if you have all the money in the world, maybe you get a reading tutor to come around your house every day and sit with the child? That's it? How can we use technology now to replicate some of that experience? And we looked at some advances in speech recognition technology that were happening in the adult sphere, we thought, Oh, well, maybe we can actually understand the child now in a way that we couldn't previously. And so we created our we created this AI reading companion who sits with a child as they read out loud, either from a real physical book, or from a book on the device, listens to the child, motivates them, coaches them helps them when they get stuck, and really tries to replicate that experience of having we say, informed caring adult sat next to the child because it could be a reading coach could be a teacher could be a parent, anybody who's there to support the child on their reading journey?
Alexander Sarlin:Yes, I mean, the informed caring adult and Ello you have an elephant mascot. Can you tell us a little bit about the yellow elephant?
Tom Sayer:Yeah, Ello actually, the name Ello we had an elephant in a previous idea we're working on because the elephant is the parent figure of the savanna. They take such good care of their children. And so that was the kind of the symbol that we had on a previous idea when we brought it forward. And then we personified it with the name ello. People think it's because I'm English, and we say Ello. It's actually on the elephant. And it's been wonderful to see we didn't necessarily do this deliberately but part of the The magic of ello is that the child has a safe space to practice reading. And it's often a really high pressure activity, they really kind of feel safe with this elephant and we get we get letters to Ello, we get there's a lot of love for Ello the character itself,
Alexander Sarlin:I can imagine that need for that, as you say, a safe space is so important for sort of high stakes reading, we forget as adults, but read learning to read is a pretty intense experience, you have people watching you, sometimes you have to read in public, there can be a lot of anxiety connected with trying to you know, sound out words in real time in front of an audience. And I think ello obviously really lowers the anxiety there. You mentioned that Ello works with both real books and books read on the device. And that's clearly a really, you know, a really interesting and I think very clever product decision. Tell us a little bit about that decision and how you sort of work to make sure that readers in any context can use Ello effectively.
Tom Sayer:There's research being done on the difference between reading on device and reading in books, it's inconclusive, right now, there's maybe a little bit of research that showing that there's inherent value to physical books, although it's, as I say, definitely not conclusive. And it comes around this concept of deep reading. And for me, the easiest thing to think about is if you create a digital product, that's all stars and sparkles, and no distraction, you're distracting them away from the the task of reading out loud. And so we're really cautious, even with the digital version, not to create that. But we also like this something. This isn't necessarily scientific. But there's something just nice about physical boxes, they Kindles have been around. For decades now, I still read from a real physical book, there's something that feels good parents also trying to reduce screen time, if possible. And so for some parents, it's important. I personally believe that screen time is fine. As long as it's valuable screen time, it's less valuable screen time, we want to be cutting out. But certainly for some parents, it's cutting down screen time more broadly into that physical book, just in case something good that feel something nice about holding a real physical book, at the same time, that's not accessible to everybody. And particularly as we think about the science of reading the importance of decodable books, in a child's literacy journey, those are not accessible to most parents, like if you go into a kid's bedroom, they don't have a shelf full of decodable books. And so we created a large number of high quality decodable books. And that's what whether you go the physical route or the digital route, you get access to these digital decodable books, which are crucial for a child's literacy journey. And so we're trying to give the best of both worlds.
Alexander Sarlin:You know, you mentioned your two co founders, Elizabeth Adams, who is sort of comes with the learning side, and then Catalin Voss, who is a technologist, I'd love to hear how you think about the sort of combination of the learning science and the psychology of reading. And the technology that actually fosters that type of AI enhanced basically learning experience, it's a really unique, I think, combination that's only really become available in this modern era of AI where you can actually take learning science and translate it very directly into your product. And I'd love to hear your process for that.
Tom Sayer:Yeah, so we're not a technology company. We're a product company, we have some of the most talented technologists on the planet, working with aloe and delivering this mission, but it's in service of a learning goal, it's in service of building a product that actually delivers the value, we're saying it will deliver. And you can't have that without the learning science without the understanding of children, families, classrooms, etc. And so we it's a little bit similar. So I previously used to work at Google for Education. And one of my jobs was to try and ensure that the huge technology rollout that was happening globally, was actually in service of learning aims. And one of the first questions I'd ask superintendents, or why are you getting technology? What's it for? And often, there wasn't always an answer to that question, because we're getting technology, because that's what everybody's doing right now. And all of this is in service of learning. And so we start with the product question the learning question, often, but the product question and then we say what technology? Do we need to deliver that. And then of course, it's, it's wonderful that we can take whatever technology because we have such a credible technical team, we can take whatever technology is available and apply it to the learning challenges we have. So that's the way we're round, we look at it. And it's the bringing together of those two things that we hope will make ello so powerful.
Alexander Sarlin:That's really the dream of education technology, I was, you know, the opportunity to truly take you know, best in class learning science, what we really know about learning and combine it with cutting edge technologies just unlocks everything. You know, you mentioned how reading scores have been very low in the US for quite a while. And not only that, but in the US. We've had this decades long debate about what is the best method to teach reading and it's only quite recently that the sort of science of reading you know, has really won out and decodable as the end of the Library of decodable. As you just mentioned, are now becoming sort of the primary way to teach. And I think, you know, one of the problems with all these decades of fighting around reading is that you have a lot of functionally illiterate people. And you have a lot of people who really had a very miserable time learning to read, and as a result, do not read as children or adults. It's a very weird, you know, world. And I think it's sort of a little bit of a shame for American education, especially ello, you, obviously, are all about the science of reading, and you are really interested in cultivating a deep and enduring love for reading. You don't want just people to learn to read, you want them to like to read and want to read, how do you approach that? And how do you make sure that students that come with different backgrounds sort of come out of the Ello experience excited about reading?
Tom Sayer:Yeah, and I'd say that's actually where most of our value comes right now is in that motivation. If you think about, as you said, like, you have to have the right curriculum, the right instruction, all of those pieces to learn to read or to learn anything, but the motivation aspect is crucial. And we actually started with that side of things. And so one of the reasons why we initially wanted to go direct to parents and not buy schools is we wanted to build a product for the kids, that would be a delightful product that gets the care and attention that products that are built for adults often get and create, hopefully a magical experience. And that's actually I think we're really really nailing that right now, when we get the kind of feedback from parents as to just the most heartwarming feedback, it's often around that my child was hating to read. And now they love it, I try and speak to at least one user every week, and speaking to a mom last week, and she was like, she said how she had tears to her eyes when her daughter said, Mom, I'm really confused. I hate reading. But I'm loving reading. Because I finally my child is enjoying reading, it's really personal for parents, like you want your child to love reading, where we now have actually more work to do is on the other side on the instructional piece, we're starting with the assumption that they are getting a rigorous structured curriculum in the classroom, which is clearly not true for every child. And so we're working more and more on being able to support that piece. So the motivation aspect, creating a product that puts the child's experience at the center is really where we started with with Ello,
Alexander Sarlin:you mentioned your product, first company. And you know, you talk to users every week, which I'm sure is incredibly informative and inspiring, and all sorts of things. And also you probably learn about all the, you know, the things you need to fix. That's just part of the world. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that approach. And you know, I'm sure ello has changed many families dynamics around reading that code you just said is fantastic. But I'd love to hear, you know, a few more just sort of outcomes that you've been seeing about ello. In real world settings. You mentioned your b2c you sell to families at the moment. And you know, parents and families and I'm sure that you have parents who have just seen incredible changes in their children's attitudes and behaviors. And I'm sure you probably talk to children who are have completely, you know, done a 180 when it comes to their reading habits. Tell us a little bit about what that looks like and sort of how you interpret that type of feedback internally with Ello.
Tom Sayer:We definitely speak to lots of users where we have lots of room for improvement. It's not all rosy in those that causes us. No, I think it's really, it's obviously a spectrum. But there are parents of reluctant readers, parents of children who are behind. And then there are parents of enthusiastic readers, we definitely have the largest impact on the former category, those children who are reluctant, who are resistant, who are behind. And we really we turn that around, I got another I was just looking, we have a small wins channel on Slack, where we post like things that kind of make us feel good. And I posted on this morning from actually from one of our investors whose child was too young when they first invested in us. And then just texted me yesterday and said, Tom Lincoln has been using ello for one week. And the difference is extraordinary. Basically reading, it's incredible. And so we get we get those all the time. And it's really, as I say the biggest aspect is that motivation. There's still so much more we're barely scratching the surface of what we want to be able to do. Parents want to feel as involved as possible in this, they want to feel empowered in their child's reading journey. So something we're working on right now is how do we give parents the information they need around their child's reading journey to be a really active participant? What we're really cautious of is we don't want to turn ello into an assessment tool. We don't want parents to be like, okay, child, you didn't make as much progress as you should have done last week. There's consequences. But we think there's thoughtful ways of doing it where we can bring the parent even more into that reading journey. And so that's one piece of feedback that we've had from parents that we're actively working on. I guess one last story and this is this is exceptional, obviously, but I think illustrates that safe space and really quickly on the safe space. Like if a child is really hating reading. A teacher will often tell the parent or encourage the parent have the child Read to a teddy bear have the child free to a pet, there's actually programs where you go read to pets. And that's because this pressure is just so intense. And so Ello provides that stress free environment, but with the support that you would get if an adult was there. And so one example of this this was relatively early on, a parent had got Ello for their one of their children, that other child's had selective mutism. And one day just found the child reading out loud to ello. And they never heard their child read because the child is would not flat out would not read. And so I think that just really highlighted the ability and the strength of creating that safe space.
Alexander Sarlin:That's incredible. It really is. It strikes me as you know, reading to a teddy bear or a pet. You know, Ello is kind of like a teddy bear or a pet elephant, but it has instructional capacity, it can actually teach pack it can listen to it does listen and respond. It's interesting to hear you talk about how you really don't want to be an assessment tool. We talked to Michael Preston from John Ganz Cooney foundation last year, and they had done a whole lot of really interesting research about exactly what you mentioned, the power of having children and parents read together and actually really, you know, work together in the reading journey. And it's such an interesting dynamic, because I know that there are certainly parents who might see, you know, the output, if you had an administrative dashboard and ELA that said, this is how much they read this is how many minutes they did this is how many mistakes they made, right? Some parents might see that as a very assessment style tool and say, Why are you making mistakes, or you should be reading for an hour a day. And instead, you want to steer it much more towards that, you know, research based, hey, this should be a collaborative, really exciting, you know, very sort of connective moment. I'm curious how you're thinking about it, because it's probably a pretty tricky decision, you're trying to sort of help parents see their role in a very different way than they might see it currently.
Tom Sayer:We already have that challenge. And the way it plays out right now is, if a child is struggling with a page, we're constantly thinking about, are we presenting the right materials to a child? Are they reading the right thing if that if they're struggling again, and again, they're reading the wrong book. And so a lot of thought goes into that. But a child might be really struggling on a page, at the end of that page, we don't go back and make them do every single mistake that they've made. Because the motivation is so crucial, it's much more important that they continue on their reading journey, than we hold them account every single thing they do wrong. And for some parents, that's not where their mind goes straight away. They're like, wait, you let my child's read this thing wrong. They're going to read this thing wrong forever. And so we do some, we actually need to do more of it. But we do, we try to do some more. And we tried to do lots of parent education on the importance of growth mindset, the importance of motivation, in the learning journey. But it's definitely parents aren't educators, parents don't know all of the techniques, which is where hopefully ello can become their teaching assistant and can be their partner on this journey. But parent education is certainly an important part of that.
Alexander Sarlin:Speaking of the role of ello, as a teaching assistant, you know, we've mentioned a couple of times, and you've mentioned a couple of times that ello has really been a we call b2c, right, a consumer product has been something selling the Dakota balls and the system to families. But we know we have a major problem in this in this country. And, and, and, and other countries as well about reading outcomes. Even with traditional learning, you know, traditional reading instruction has not always worked, it certainly hasn't always worked. And even recently, it's scores are still really low. So I imagine you're thinking a lot about, you know, how ELO could be used not only in home environments, but also potentially in traditional education settings. That could be schools that could be tutoring, that could be you know, all kinds of environments, libraries. I'm curious how you're thinking about that, and whether there's something you're considering as a potential future for ELA. Absolutely.
Tom Sayer:And if we start with our mission, so our mission right now is to teach any child to read from start to finish, regardless of resources. And so if you start with that, as the mission, the regardless of resources, that means that we have to work with schools, because you can't reach all children with a direct to consumer product, so schools will be a part of our future. We also think about it through the lens or the if there is a pedagogical philosophy alow it's around learner centered education, it's about putting the child at the center, and the school is a really, really crucial part of any individual child's learning experiences. So to to ignore a school would be would not be the most effective thing you can do for a child even you're sharing some information, which we want to do, like sharing some of that reading progress data with teachers would be a big step to thinking about the child's entire learning experience. So yet scores will definitely be on our future. There's so many things we want to do. It's obviously in a startup. It's all a question of prioritization, but schools will be a part of our future at some point,
Alexander Sarlin:that pathway for ad tech companies from being direct to consumer B or b2c, going to schools and debt. strikes are going to universities, in some cases, is a really interesting and I think it's it's a pathway that a lot of companies have seen to great success, they've expanded enormously, and had the socially beneficial effect that you just mentioned, of being able to provide low cost or free education because the school system can fit the bill. It's interesting, because I imagine in your current position, because you're working in and families, you may be thinking about, as you sort of just hinted that you know, how to get the information out of a student's behaviors at home with elbow into the hands of the reading teacher at school. And you know, a lot of companies that go the other way, they say, Oh, we work in schools, but we really want parents to be continuing to know what's going on with their students at home, and you have the, you're going the opposite direction, we really want teachers to know what's happening at home. How do you see the relationship between the sort of parent and the teacher and reading specialists and others who work in a children's reading, reading world? How do you see that connection as being a whole support system for students? And what role might ello play in that?
Tom Sayer:I think the good news is that teachers are obviously understand the impact of the home environment, and always wanting more information about their students progress. And so I think once we're ready, in terms of just providing teachers, that information in its most basic form, I think teachers will be will be hungry for that information, and will be excited to have that information. I think the challenge, obviously, with the classrooms, as teachers are just so overwhelmed with the amount that we're asking them to do. And so how do you create that in a way that can actually do something meaningful? That's where I think it becomes more effective when we're actually working with schools. And so if a classroom is actually using aloe as a whole, it can be a part of it can be a part of assessment, like assessment in schools is crucial like, and lots of reading focus companies really hone in on that use case. And so I think if we can integrate more tightly into what's happening in the classroom, we can make it more valuable. But in the first instance, I think there's an appetite from teachers, it's just about how do we give it to teachers in a way that they can make use of it, just given everything else that's going on in in their life
Alexander Sarlin:makes sense. And given that some students have ELO at home, and others don't. So it's not that they can look at a full class dashboard and say, here's where everyone is in the yellow system yet, because, you know, some students are getting in and others are not. And I'm sure there's a huge advantage for the students who are getting that kind of instruction at home. Really interesting. You know, one of the things that I think is especially exciting about ello, you mentioned how, you know, it's combining learning science and technology. But the technology that it's combining is really sort of sophisticated, automatic speech recognition for children, and AI is a big part of what ello is doing. Can you tell us a little bit about how you have embraced AI within ello to, you know, to really enhance the technological support and where you might be going in the future in terms of as AI continues to improve, you know, what else might you be able to do in the future to support readers? Absolutely.
Tom Sayer:And people right now are often thinking when they say AI, they're thinking of generative ai, ai is obviously a much broader category. And so you can kind of break down if you think about what makes a teacher working directly with a child. So impactful, there's a few things there's the teacher is able to understand the child in a way the technology just hasn't been able to understand the child, they're then able to, like perceive a child perception of speech perception, in our case, they're then able to understand that child really put together all of the things that make that child unique from whether they've had breakfast that morning to their cultural background to their strengths and needs. And then they're able to create learning experiences in the moment that are perfect for that child, or teachers not thinking they're doing all of this, but that's what they're doing to be so impactful on a child. And I think AI can get a little bit closer across all three of those categories. We started with perception, like we saw, as mentioned, the advances in speech recognition, or like we can do this for children, and fundamentally change how well a technology can understand the child in the way that they naturally communicate. And particularly for younger children, they learn through speaking, it's both not our natural way. But it also takes a number of years for us to be able to naturally learn through typing and etc. And particularly, they can't read they can't learn through reading at that point. So that's where we started. And then generative AI came along like, oh, okay, we can now start to respond in a more human manner. And for us that starting with and this is where I think it gets really exciting, and in some cases can provide a level of support that even an amazing teacher would struggle with. We can understand a child at the phoneme level, how well they're doing, we can create a map of that child's literacy progression. We can then put the next path or we will be able to this is what we're working in. That's not what's happening right now. But we'll be able to do Put the next thing that the child reads is perfectly tailored for where they are on that journey, both in terms of their interests, but also in terms of their literacy levels. If they're struggling with the SH phoneme, we can have a book that really emphasizes the SH phoneme, and has instructional content around the SH running. And I think that's where it gets really exciting because you have an amazing teacher, they have so limited with the number of books that they have in the classroom, they can try and pull out the most appropriate book, but the chances that it's perfect for that child is unlikely. So that's where we're going, you can then imagine where AI can potentially get in terms of that super high touch human interaction. And we're certainly excited about that. But we also don't want to get ahead of ourselves. I think we're in the peak excitement phase of AI right now. We're going to hit a trough where everyone's like, Wait, that didn't deliver all of the promise we thought it would. And then we're going to gradually come back out and be like, Oh, no, wait, this is revolutionary. We just needed to be a little slower, a little bit more thoughtful. So it's certainly really exciting where it could go in the future. But that's why we're applying it right now.
Alexander Sarlin:I love your sighting of the hype cycle in that especially because, you know, I think the automatic speech recognition type of AI, which you're using extensively within ello right now is, you know, speech recognition, especially for adults has been in development for quite a long time. And we Siri was named after Stanford Research Institute that was studying this a long time ago, we've had Amazon Alexa, we've had Google, we've had all sorts of interesting things, you know, happening in speech recognition. And now we're in the sort of plateau there. And it's being used for all sorts of incredibly innovative things like what you're doing it ello. And I think generative AI is still certainly at the height, maybe still even going up, but certainly at the height of its cycle. But I really agree with you, and I'm very excited about it personally, about Yes, there will be a trough. But the power is so great that I think when it comes back up, there are so many incredible use cases for it. And you know, you didn't use this word. But what I'm hearing you say is that teachers are incredibly good at personalizing learning experiences to early readers, they can hear them, they can know them, they can know their interests, they can know them over time, they can respond in ways that are tailored to the student, and they can even create new learning experiences or content, specifically for that student. And that is exactly what AI can do as well, it can you know, not as well as a teacher, but it can personalize the experience. It can understand a student's interests, what they've liked to read what they've spent more time reading what they tell you they like. And then it can create tailored learning content, tailored decodable is all sorts of things like that. So it's a really exciting vision. You didn't say this? Exactly. So I'd love to sort of pass it back to you. Personalization is the sort of hot word in the AI space. Do you consider what you just named as ellos potential approach personalized learning? Or is that a term that you sort of stay away from? I
Tom Sayer:think personalization is almost too narrow a term in terms of the potential. I think if you said to a teacher, hey, you're just doing personalized learning, suddenly, a goal of potty instruction is to personalize it. But it's even richer than that. You can probably I don't know if this is a good analogy. But Google searches as personalized as chat GPT. But there's something that feels fundamentally different about interacting with chat, GBT than Google search. And so I think it goes broader than personalized learning. But certainly, a crucial part of it is that ability to really understand the specific student. And it's in its way, teachers assistants in the classroom are so powerful. And if you're fortunate enough to be in a district that has teachers assistants, while the teacher is trying to differentiate their instruction to everybody in the class, they have teachers assistants who can go in and do that deeper differentiation with specific students. Imagine if you could give a teacher 24 Teachers assistance for the students in their class, that would be really powerful. It's not going to get to what the teacher is doing. But if it can get closer and play that role, that could be really, really powerful. And I think it comes from the ability of AI to take a much more nuanced, holistic approach to how it responds to its inputs. And that's where it's really exciting.
Alexander Sarlin:That makes a lot of I love the idea of you know, personalization is not even brought enough Atari. It's but it's beyond personalization. I agree with that. And I think it's really interesting. You know, last year, we had the chance to speak to Martin fyros of soapbox labs, who has been doing some interesting work in automatic speech recognition for children. They were acquired recently. But one of the things that came up in that conversation that really stuck with me, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it is that, especially because you just mentioned something I think similar to it is that pre literate children can't engage with generative AI in the way that we sort of currently think about it, right? They can't read yet. So they can read text responses, and they certainly can't type or spell yet. So they can't insert text in a traditional sort of computer interface text based way. But they can interface with generative AI through speech, right? They can say something to a generative AI engine model and have it understand them as if it was text and then respond in either speech or text or visuals or even videos. So that Omni modal nature of generative AI that we're sort of heading towards actually opens it up, open up the access to it for young children. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. And if it's something that ello has been wrapping its mind around as well. Or if it's way ahead and thinking about it in all sorts of interesting ways.
Tom Sayer:I haven't thought about it for that specific lens. That's fascinating way of thinking about it. I think perhaps, because the reason why we haven't thought about it through that lens is because we've tended to start, as I mentioned, with the problem, it's like, what's the next specific thing? And then what can technology do to deliver that? But yeah, I think if we take a step back and think about the capabilities of AI, we absolutely, and not just with regard to interacting with AI, but interacting with technology in general, that the importance of speech as the input for that interaction for younger children, but then thinking about the ability for AI to then respond in a way that is much more akin to how children can engage with content makes a ton of sense. I
Alexander Sarlin:have a preliterate child in the house right now, who is just under two and he loves, you know, almost ducks, he's watches it all the time and little YouTube video, you know, he could say, This is what I like almost, this video, and AI can say, Great, I'm gonna write you 100 stories about almost ducks that are at your level that are readable, you know, he doesn't have to understand it or type it, he could literally click on it, and it could be an input. So it's just a really fascinating and weird, weird world, this sort of, you know, multimodal approach to AI both in inputs and outputs. I think, as a species, we're all sort of trying to understand and we saw open AI put out Sora this week that to generate or, you know, not quite put out, but announced Sora, this week that it generates videos, and it's just quite wild. So let's put on your sort of futurist hat for a moment here, right elbow has already been very cutting edge, and you've built your own technology and all sorts of interesting ways to be able to deliver this really high level learning and technological experience to families. You know, zoom forward for, you know, let's talk about 2025 2030. What do you think reading instruction might look like at that point.
Tom Sayer:2025 is very, I think where this goes both with literacy, but also learning more broadly, is a step towards the way that we as humans were learning 1000 years ago, which was in dialogue with a person who guided you on your learning journey. And if you think about the capabilities of AI, the ability for a child to have a learning companion, that is infinitely patients that is aligned in the AI sense of the word with kindergarten teachers with the goals of educational institutions. So they've charged GPT, the big technological advancement, there was reinforcement learning with human feedback, that world's best kindergarten teachers can be that human feedback to create models that really respond in a way that's pedagogically sound. And you see, you have this companion, this learning companion that could pass the New York bar, if it wanted to, it could get a pass the GMAT, it could do whatever it wants, but it's there for that child on their learning journey. And I think that's where it ends up. And a child has a learning companion, as they go about their learning journey, which allows them to both pursue the things they're passionate about, but also the things that other people want them to learn in a much, much more high tech manner. It's like you have your own personal teacher who can sit with you as you go about
Alexander Sarlin:learning. So do you imagine that you know, elbow, your elbow, elephant might help a student learn to read, but then when they get to third grade, and they're reading about science, that ello might mature into a different type of companion that will help them you know, read to learn, as they say, Absolutely,
Tom Sayer:we're very deliberate that we're not gonna go there until we've cracked reading, like reading is a crucial problem, and is the foundation for the rest of learning. But yeah, you can imagine your child's child's reading with aloe, the content that they're reading is being determined as to what's put in front of them. Eventually, you're having a discussion with Allah about the contents of that book, as part of literacy, instruction, comprehension questions, a good reading coach will have a dialogue about the book at the end of the book. Now you can just change what the child's reading and you can expand the scope of the discussion. And you go from learning to read to reading to learn at exactly the point that the child is doing that. So yeah, absolutely. That's where we're hoping to go hopefully sooner rather than later. But as the same, we don't want to jump too quickly and miss the crucial work that needs to be done on literacy. And
Alexander Sarlin:of course, I asked you for the future. So of course, everything comes in phases and in steps and obviously ELO is doing really, really exceptional work in literacy, teaching. One more question just about the sort of the interest based piece of this, you know, there's been really interesting research about readers that says that, you know, Literally children will read better if they're reading about a topic that is of high interest to them. So you know, students who love soccer, if they're reading a story about soccer, they literally will read it better than a story about something completely unrelated. And that feels like a really interesting, you've mentioned that you've already do sort of interest based activity and things like that. But I'm curious how you think about that aspect of reading in the context of ello. And what it does, yeah, and
Tom Sayer:maybe gets close to one of the challenges. So I think we had the correct swing to science of reading that we needed to have as a country. But there's still nuanced debate within that as to what's most important, one of the discussions at the moment, is about the importance of knowledge in the reading journey. And very few people would advocate this, but if you took the most pared down version of science of readings, then you just have to teach them the code. And it's all okay. And it's like, it's not having an understanding of the content matter. Having the vocabulary is crucial for that literacy process. And so that's certainly touches on some of that, like, if you're reading about something that you know about and care about, you're both motivated to read it. And you have all of that contextual knowledge that helps you with your literacy journey. So yeah, we're doing some of that now. But the really exciting part comes, which hopefully, is in the not too distant future is where, hopefully this year is where the reading content can be perfectly tailored to the child. There's then questions that are raised about like, well, who gets to decide exactly what that is, sometimes we with our child centered approach, saying that the child gets to decide what that is right now. But there certainly could be worlds where it's like, we're heading into the elections, the parent wants to make sure they're reading a book about the importance of democracy or, or whatever it might be. So there's lots of exciting once we have the technical capability to do this in a pedagogically sound, and high quality manner, the possibilities are huge.
Alexander Sarlin:That's a really interesting point about you know, how do we determine the interests of a student or the topic matter that would be relevant at any given time. And that's another thing you know, that teachers do a great job of, right? It's not that teachers say, I'm just going to take the child's and put, you know, whatever they love, I'm just going to give them books about that. Part of the role of a great teacher is to say, the child loves this great, I'm going to use that as a springboard. You know, they love dinosaurs, I'm going to give them King Arthur, because it's about dragons, they're going to love the dragon in it, and they're going to learn something completely new. And I bet they're gonna love it. So I love that sort of combination of taking inputs from the reader themselves, and from pedagogical and teachers and parents, and thinking about how to expand a child's content.
Tom Sayer:And that's why there's so much potential with AI, but where there's a level that a teacher can do that, certainly with what we see right now, technology can't get to so when a child walks in and take that simple question of like, What books should they read, if you know that that child is stressed, they've just had a massive argument with their sibling, whatever it may be, the parent has an understanding of that child's emotional state, maybe I'm not going to push the more complex book, I'm just going to let them read the easier thing because I want them to engage in it. Maybe eventually, one day, technology will be able to do that. But that's I think, where that level of emotional interaction that a teacher can provide isn't on the table right now for AI, that is so
Alexander Sarlin:interesting. It makes me think of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, which are, you know, very specifically about a sort of underdog kid who's always you know, things are never quite going right for them, or even like Charlie Brown, and, you know, those are the types of characters that can really help students, when they're struggling with their own emotional or their own social emotional situations. They can say, Oh, well, you know, I'm learning from a character, I'm seeing myself in a character. So I love that. I wasn't thinking about it that way at all. But I love that aspect of, you know, emotional inputs as a core need for what children should read. Besides, you know, it's topic, matter and interest, there's an emotional state, and you know, where a child is in their life might have, you know, the right book at the right time has changed, certainly changed my life. And I'm sure he's changed many people's lives. fascinating to think about all of this. So we've talked about AI, we've talked about the science of reading. I'm curious, as you sort of zoom out and look at your space and edtech generally, what do you see coming? You know, what do you think that the EdTech landscape is going to start to embrace more of in the coming years that it maybe hasn't quite connected with yet?
Tom Sayer:I think that the centering of the child experience is something that's so crucial, whether it's in the classroom, or whether it's in the home environment, I'll do a shout out for a group called Education Reimagined, they're a nonprofit based out of DC that are really pushing the philosophy and the movement around learner centered education. And that just says, like, let's start with the learner and its needs and let's build out from there rather than starting off with whoever else is needs, the parents needs the superintendents needs. And I think similar to we saw the shift in enterprise software they can The 90s It was Oracle. And it's like, how can anybody see, like really elegant, beautiful software that comes out for enterprises and for businesses. And I think the same, or at least I hope that the same will see for children. And that starts with some of the superficial things like design, like, does it look beautiful. But by putting the child at the center, it impacts everything that happens within that from the pedagogy to the technology. And it really tries to think about all of the aspects of the child. So it's a what makes, how much can we absorb of what makes that child unique to create an experience? That's right for them. I mean, this isn't even technology based. But it's because we were starting from a blank slate with our content, we ensured that it was representative of the country, which that is not the case for books in the country right now. And a child being able to read a book that they see themselves in to some extent, and what's what we were just talking about is really, really important. And so how can we build products that are right for the individual child, not the average child is something that I think we'll continue to see developing
Alexander Sarlin:love that the idea of sort of identifying what's unique about each child and each child at each moment, right at any given time in their development, and being able to use that as the launching pad for what education should look like, rather than curriculum down or anything like that is very exciting to think about, I love that answer. And what is a resource that you would recommend for somebody who wants to dive deeper into any of the subjects we discussed today?
Tom Sayer:So two, I think maybe to pair together the technology and the learning science that we were kind of the Ello we're trying to balance. So on the technology side, I love the AI roundup that's written by Claire from GSV. It's such a great succinct weekly summary of everything, both in education, but also outside when keeping up to date with the latest advances outside of education. And then Education Reimagined. Like if that learner centered philosophy. I've taken so much inspiration from the work that they've done. And so I'd recommend anybody to sign up to their newsletter.
Alexander Sarlin:Fantastic. We will put links to the GSV AI round up and to the Education Reimagined newsletter in the show notes for this episode. super interesting. I love the AI roundup as well, but I have never read anything from Education Reimagined. So really exciting to learn more about that as well excited to
Tom Sayer:annual co host he's a huge fan of education, as he never
Alexander Sarlin:mentioned it to me, but that's great. Okay, well, I'll surprise him next time by exciting it. Thank you so much, Tom Sayer, from Ello doing truly truly innovative work, combining what we know the most modern cutting edge learning science of reading with technology that is also very cutting edge, all sorts of AI and amazing technology. Thanks so much for being here with us on tech insiders.
Tom Sayer:Thank you so much for having me.
Alexander Sarlin:Thanks for listening to this episode of Edtech Insiders. If you liked the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the tech community. For those who want even more Edtech Insider subscribe to the free Edtech Insiders newsletter on substack.