Reading growth in kids refers to the measurable improvement in their ability to decode, understand, and engage with written text. It includes gains in four key areas:

• Fluency – the ability to read smoothly, accurately, and with appropriate expression 
• Comprehension – the capacity to understand, recall, and think critically about what’s read 
• Vocabulary – the breadth and depth of word knowledge 
• Reading Level – a benchmarked indication of a student’s ability to tackle increasingly complex texts

These elements form the foundation of literacy and are essential for success in every subject area. But for many children, especially those who are English Language Learners, have learning differences like dyslexia or ADHD, or lack access to consistent reading instruction, developing these skills can be a struggle.

That’s where Readability steps in.

Readability is an AI-powered reading platform built on decades of reading science, offering daily, individualized instruction to help children make consistent, trackable progress. Unlike assessment-first tools, Readability provides real-time, interactive reading support that builds skills while the child reads, transforming practice time into meaningful growth.

Grounded in Science: The Foundation of Readability

At the heart of Readability’s design is a commitment to the Science of Reading, a body of research backed by decades of studies and summarized in landmark reports like the National Reading Panel Report (2000). This research outlines five essential components, often referred to as the Five Pillars of Literacy, that are critical for children to become successful readers:

1. Phonemic Awareness

This is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. It’s the foundation of learning to read, as children must understand that words are made up of sounds before they can begin to decode them.

How Readability Supports It: Readability builds phonemic awareness through read-aloud practice, where students speak words aloud and receive real-time feedback on pronunciation. The app helps children become aware of and correct their own errors, reinforcing their ability to distinguish and produce sounds accurately.

2. Phonics

Phonics is the relationship between letters and their sounds, learning how to decode written words. Effective phonics instruction is systematic, explicit, and cumulative.

How Readability Supports It: The platform provides guided reading sessions that help students decode unfamiliar words by sounding them out. When a child struggles, Readability highlights the word, models its pronunciation, and encourages repetition, just like a 1:1 tutor. This strengthens decoding skills while building confidence.

3. Fluency

Fluency is the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. It connects decoding with comprehension by freeing up cognitive resources for understanding the text.

How Readability Supports It: Readability tracks Words Correct Per Minute (WCPM) and provides students with immediate feedback to help them adjust pacing and accuracy. Over time, students develop natural, expressive reading through repeated practice supported by AI-driven corrections.

4. Vocabulary

A rich vocabulary improves comprehension and enables students to understand more complex texts. Vocabulary grows both through direct instruction and exposure to varied reading material.

How Readability Supports It: The app integrates vocabulary support directly into its reading experience. Unknown words are highlighted and defined, and students are encouraged to use context clues. Definitions and synonyms are read aloud, reinforcing both spoken and visual understanding. Progress in vocabulary acquisition is tracked and can be monitored via the dashboard.

5. Comprehension

The ultimate goal of reading comprehension is the ability to understand, analyze, and derive meaning from text. This includes identifying the main idea, making inferences, and drawing conclusions.

How Readability Supports It: At the end of each story or book, Readability asks verbal comprehension questions that the student answers aloud. The AI evaluates responses for accuracy and depth, providing immediate guidance. This spoken-response format encourages active recall, critical thinking, and oral language development.

A Systematic, Embedded Approach

Unlike tools that isolate these skills into disconnected exercises, Readability integrates all five pillars into every reading session. As students read out loud, the platform listens, analyzes, adapts, and teaches in real-time. This creates a multisensory learning experience that mirrors best practices from the classroom while allowing for independent, self-paced learning at home or in school.

By aligning directly with the National Reading Panel’s recommendations and using AI to simulate evidence-based reading instruction, Readability delivers not just content, but transformation. Each element of literacy is addressed systematically and responsively, helping students develop into fluent, confident, and capable readers.

Real-Time AI Feedback to Improve Fluency

One of the most powerful features of Readability is its real-time AI listening and feedback system, designed to help children become fluent, confident readers. Fluency is more than just reading quickly, it’s about reading smoothly, accurately, and with expression. For many children, fluency is the bridge between decoding words and truly understanding what they’re reading.

How It Works: Live Reading Support

When a child reads aloud using the Readability app, the AI technology actively listens to every word spoken. It tracks several critical fluency components:

• Pronunciation – Detects mispronounced words and prompts the child to try again 
• Pacing – Identifies when reading is too fast or too slow and encourages smoother flow 
• Word Recognition – Flags hesitation or errors, highlighting challenging words for repetition

As the child reads, the app provides gentle, spoken corrections or encouragement. This mirrors the kind of feedback a trained tutor or teacher would give during one-on-one instruction, but it happens instantly, and as often as needed.

A Virtual Reading Tutor in Every Home or Classroom

This real-time feedback loop transforms Readability into a virtual reading tutor, offering:

• Consistent, personalized guidance without scheduling or waitlists 
• Non-judgmental support, which reduces anxiety for reluctant readers 
• Independent learning, allowing kids to build skills at their own pace

Because the app corrects in the moment, students quickly self-correct, reinforce learning, and develop better reading habits over time. This kind of interactive fluency coaching is rarely possible at scale in traditional classrooms or tutoring settings, but Readability makes it accessible every day.

Proven Impact: 74% of Students Improved Fluency

In a 2023 analysis of 598 students who used Readability regularly (minimum 10 minutes per day, 30+ days), 74% demonstrated measurable improvement in reading fluency. These gains were tracked using Words Correct Per Minute (WCPM), a research-backed fluency metric used by educators.

This result underscores the effectiveness of Readability’s feedback model, especially for students who struggle with decoding, pacing, or confidence.

Case in Point: 288% Fluency Growth

One standout example comes from a second-grade student reading below grade level, who began using Readability with very limited fluency. After consistent use across several months, their fluency improved by 288%, reflecting dramatic growth in both accuracy and speed.

This student’s story is not unique; many children with learning gaps have achieved similar results when supported by the platform’s daily, guided reading sessions.

In short, Readability doesn’t just tell you that your child is improving, it makes that improvement happen through responsive, real-time, research-aligned fluency support.

Adaptive Learning Paths for Personalized Growth

No two children learn to read in exactly the same way or at the same pace. That’s why personalization is essential to meaningful reading growth, especially for students who face barriers like dyslexia, ADHD, autism, or limited English proficiency. Readability meets this need through its powerful adaptive AI engine, which continuously evaluates and adjusts a child’s reading experience in real time.

How the Adaptive Engine Works

As a student reads aloud within the app, Readability’s AI actively analyzes:

• Reading accuracy 
• Fluency and pacing 
• Comprehension responses 
• Vocabulary recognition

Based on this data, the platform automatically adjusts the difficulty of reading passages and questions, making them easier or more challenging as needed. This ensures that students are always working in their “zone of proximal development”: challenged enough to grow, but supported enough to succeed.

Books and comprehension questions are matched to a student’s current reading level, and as the student progresses, the system levels up both the content and the skills being assessed. This approach mirrors high-quality one-on-one instruction, without requiring constant teacher input.

Support for Diverse Learners

Readability’s adaptive model is especially effective for students who need more than a one-size-fits-all approach:

• Struggling Readers receive scaffolded support and can revisit texts without fear of failure 
• English Language Learners (ELLs) benefit from pronunciation modeling, real-time feedback, and vocabulary development built into every story 
• Students with Dyslexia or Learning Differences thrive with features like repeated reading, speech recognition, and visual tracking 
• Neurodivergent Students, including those with ADHD or autism, benefit from short reading sessions, gamified feedback, and pacing control

Unlike static programs that require teacher-led placement or testing, Readability’s adaptive technology makes real-time personalization automatic every day, with every book.

Proven Usage and Impact

Because students are placed in engaging, level-appropriate content, they are more motivated to read and stick with it. The data proves it:

• On average, students using Readability read 138 books per year 
• They engage with the app for 146 reading days annually 
• That’s over 2,365 minutes of purposeful, skill-building reading time per student per year

This kind of consistent, sustained engagement is rarely achieved in traditional interventions and it directly translates into measurable reading growth.

Readability’s adaptive learning path turns every reading session into a custom-fit lesson. It meets students where they are, helps them stretch without stress, and ensures every learner, regardless of starting point, can grow into a strong, confident reader.

Integrated Comprehension Checks

Reading isn’t just about decoding words, it’s about making meaning. Strong readers don’t simply say the words correctly; they understand, analyze, and connect with what they’ve read. That’s why comprehension is one of the five essential pillars of literacy, and a core feature of the Readability platform.

How It Works: Verbal Comprehension Checks

After each story or book, Readability prompts the student with spoken comprehension questions, which they answer aloud. These questions are designed to assess key cognitive and literacy skills, such as:

• Main idea identification 
• Character and plot understanding 
• Cause and effect reasoning 
• Making inferences and drawing conclusions 
• Summarizing and sequencing events

This verbal question-and-answer format allows the AI to evaluate not just what the student says, but how well they understand the story. The platform listens for accuracy, logic, and relevance in the child’s spoken response, offering immediate feedback or prompting the child to try again if needed.

Skill Building Beyond the Text

These comprehension checks aren’t just assessments, they’re learning opportunities that build critical literacy skills in real time:

• Listening skills improve as students process spoken questions and think through their responses 
• Inference skills are sharpened when students are asked to “read between the lines” or predict outcomes 
• Summarization skills are reinforced through questions that require retelling or explaining key events in their own words

Over time, this consistent practice helps students build stronger reading-to-learn skills, preparing them for success in content-rich subjects like science, social studies, and math.

Actionable Feedback for Adults

All comprehension activity is captured in the AI Progress Dashboard, where parents and educators can:

• See how many comprehension questions were answered 
• Track accuracy rates over time 
• Identify specific comprehension skills that need reinforcement (e.g., inference vs. recall) 
• View summaries of student responses for deeper insight

This transparent, data-driven feedback empowers adults to support targeted instruction, intervene early when comprehension gaps appear, and celebrate growth when students improve.

Readability doesn’t just ask, “Did the child finish the book?” it asks, “Did they understand it?” And through real-time spoken assessments and detailed reporting, the platform ensures comprehension is not just assumed, but developed, tracked, and celebrated.

Progress Monitoring for Parents and Teachers

One of the most transformative features of Readability is its AI-powered Progress Dashboard, a tool that offers real-time visibility into each child’s reading journey. This level of tracking not only empowers educators and parents to make informed decisions, but also helps children stay motivated by making their progress visible, measurable, and worth celebrating.

What the Dashboard Tracks

As students read aloud, Readability’s AI engine captures rich data points automatically, compiling them into an intuitive dashboard that includes:

• Words Read – Tracks cumulative reading volume to measure engagement and practice 
• WCPM (Words Correct Per Minute) – A key fluency metric that reflects speed and accuracy combined 
• Reading Time – Logs the number of minutes read per session and over time 
• Comprehension Scores – Measures performance on spoken comprehension questions after each passage or book 
• Vocabulary Growth – Shows unfamiliar words encountered and mastered 
• Reading Level Movement – Visualizes progress through different reading levels

This real-time data helps build a complete, multidimensional profile of each student’s reading development, without requiring extra testing or teacher time.

Bridging the Gap Between Home and School

The dashboard is accessible to both parents and educators, making it a powerful tool for home-school collaboration. Here’s how it supports that partnership:

• Parents can see exactly how much and how well their child is reading at home, allowing them to step in when support is needed or celebrate when goals are met. 
• Teachers can monitor student progress outside the classroom, identify specific areas where intervention is needed, and tailor instruction accordingly. 
• Both parties can align on realistic goals for daily reading time, fluency benchmarks, or comprehension improvement.

Because Readability captures this data continuously, it also supports early intervention. For example, if a student’s comprehension scores begin to dip or their fluency stalls, educators and parents can act swiftly, rather than waiting for end-of-term assessments.

Why This Matters

Without tools like Readability, reading growth can feel invisible. Parents might wonder if their child’s nightly reading is really effective. Teachers may struggle to gauge independent reading progress. The Progress Dashboard eliminates the guesswork.

As one parent shared:

“With Readability, you don’t have to wonder if it’s working. You’ll see how it’s working.”

The AI Progress Dashboard turns reading from a solitary activity into a shared, transparent, and supported journey. It helps educators and families stay connected, proactive, and focused on helping every child reach their full literacy potential.