“We've only had Ello for two days, but it is already making a difference! My daughter, who has always hated reading, especially aloud to a parent, is looking forward to reading with Ello. In just a day and a half, she has already read four of the five books. We homeschool, so having Ello has really helped my daughter have someone other than me to read to. My daughter just needs more reading practice, but says I make her nervous, so Ello has filled that need beautifully. My only wish is that there would be an option to request more than five books each month....it works so well that we need more!”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“My youngest daughter was instantly delighted to get her books and give Ello a try. She's in Kindergarten and LOVES to read and I thought this would be a great way for her to gain more opportunities to practice. We had a bit of a shipping delay upon our first order, but Ello's customer support was exceptional, even on a weekend! My oldest daughter now wants us to sign her up for the program as well. Thank you, Ello for a well-thought-out program.”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Hello is a good app for the kids to learn how to read the only thing that I didn't like was when she was reading to ello he would just let her keep going even if she didn't say the words right and I didn't like it”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

Hi Mesha, Thank you for your review and feedback! If you ask reading specialists, they will tell you that when they sit with a child during their reading, they do a few things when it comes to errors: - They give them wait time. Ello allows kids to ask for help when they need it, but we never hurry them along. - They don't interrupt them when they make an error, they let them finish the page. Ello will now have a feature where at the end of the page, we will have your child go back to review words they miss. While they can ask for help anytime, we won’t interrupt them while they are reading - They don't correct every error! This one may be a surprise for parents, but literacy specialists know that correcting every error will frustrate kids. While we will bring kids back to review words they miss at the end of the page, we won’t do this for EVERY error, this is purposeful. We try to keep our eyes on the big goal - building confident, enthusiastic readers. Our exciting motivation, evidence-based coaching and thoughtful timing of support will get them there! It's also important to remember that if a child is reading text at an appropriate developmental level, they should only be making one error on every two pages (or so). More than that might mean the book is too hard (we can help adjust the text if that is the case!). Another note: Speech recognition (as you might know from Alexa or Siri) isn't perfect. We walk a delicate balance between not wanting to be SO strict that a slight accent or difference in pronunciation results in Ello getting stuck or detecting an error, and also not wanting to be so lenient that it lets kids through with a ton of mistakes or doesn't correct a mistake. Kids are particularly sensitive to the first --no one likes to be told they are "wrong" when they aren't-- so we lean a bit more lenient. Ello is always there for kids (via the question mark) when they want help, and we never interrupt them during reading to correct an error. Teachers don't do this either. We wait until the end of the page and then have them go back if we think they missed a word. The bottom line is this: we think about the experience holistically. Ello is motivating support that will correct them on errors (although not all errors, by design), is always there to help if a child proactively asks for it, and motivates them to keep going!

Posted 1 year ago

“My 6 year is not a huge reader and struggles sounding out words but loves his tablet. This is perfect and combines the two. We’ve only had it a few days but he’s already read every book once and is excited to be able to read them with out Ello guiding him! Highly recommended Ello.”

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Posted 1 year ago

“My daughter has Apraxia, it picks up her words only sometimes and makes her HATE reading as unfortunately it's frustrating. Asked about more then 5 books and the customer service told me they only offer 5 books and we should read to our kiddos also that their program was not to be used as a parent. I asked simply because my kids teacher asks they do supervised independent reading. I can sit a distance away and still hear them which was the perk. For sure not for everyone and not for the ages they claim. The books they sent are not even tailored to the reading level they ask.”

1 Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

Hi Betty, Thank you so much for your feedback and sharing your thoughts. Currently, Ello's speech recognition, while outperforming other speech recognition tools on the market for children, does have some challenges for children with speech differences. In its current state, Ello is comparing the child's produced speech to typical pronunciations of words, and Ello is not able to differentiate between a child mispronouncing a word because they read it wrong vs. mispronouncing a word because they have a speech difference. This means that it can be frustrating for children with different speech patterns. However, we are committed to making Ello work for ALL children, and are in the process of working on our speech recognition models so that they can serve children with speech differences (and try to distinguish this from reading errors - a hard task!). We would be happy to refund you fully if it isn't a fit (just reach out to support@helloello.com). You are correct that our current subscription only offeres five books per month. We are actively working on models that will allow parents to access more books per month (either digitally or physically). The books are tailored to the child's reading level and chosen by our literacy specialists. We send the books based on parent responses to our onboarding questions and, if you choose, information from the teacher. If you do not think they books are correct, we would be happy to have you chat with a reading specialist on our team to make sure we get the right books to your child (we can do that right away!).

Posted 1 year ago

“Overall the concept is great. My daughter really enjoys using the app, earning coins and picking out a prize when she’s done reading the books. I’m not sure if other people are experiencing the same thing, but the app glitches quite a bit. We have to completely close it out and re open it. It also doesn’t always recognize what she is saying and doesn’t keep up with the same page as her. She gets frustrated when that happens. I’d like it if Ello corrected her a little more than it does. Sometimes she says the same word wrong multiple times and no corrections are made. Aside from that, she really likes it so far and is excited to get her new box. I’m hoping the “bugs” get resolved.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

Hi Laura, Thank you for your review. I am sorry to hear about the difficulties you are experiencing. We would really love to work with you to figure out what may be happening to cause these app glitches, as we have not received these reports from other customers. Please reach out to support@helloello.com and we can help to troubleshoot the glitches (you should not have to close it out and reopen it). If you can send a video of what is happening, that would be really helpful (and support can take that privately). We are glad to hear that there are bright moments of enjoyment and we look forward to working with you to get the challenges you are eperiencing resolved!

Posted 1 year ago

Jacqueline C

Verified Reviewer

“My daughter was so excited to start this new way of reading. Now everyday she tells me wants to do the reading with ello and that gets me very excited to see she wants to read.”

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Posted 1 year ago

“I wish I would have found this years ago for my oldest son. But today my son brought it in from outside and immediately got to work. He read all five books and was extremely proud of himself, which of course made me so proud. I’m glad I found a program that made reading exciting for him. Well done!”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

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