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Litnerd
p/litnerdThe Pixar for education, reading program for K-5 schools
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Kat Manalac

Litnerd - The Pixar for education, reading program for K-5 schools

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Litnerd is an online classroom reading program that brings books to life by blending the creator economy to traditional education. Programs include episode reenactments of books, ELA lesson plans, curriculum and ebooks.

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Anisa Mirza
Maker
Hello Product Hunt fam! First off, big thanks to Kat for hunting us! My name is Anisa and I am the founder of Litnerd. Excited to be back in YC with S21 batch (I was previously YC W15). The mission we are solving is extremely personal for me. Litnerd’s mission is to inspire elementary school students to fall in love with reading by blurring the line between learning and entertainment. Our reading program is part of scheduled classroom time for elementary schools. 🎭 HOW IT WORKS: We recreate scenes directly from books in episode style format to bring the book to life — in a similar fashion to watching your favorite TV shows. Teachers have no additional burden when deploying our programs in their classrooms; all of our programs come with lesson plans, activity packets, curriculum correlations, educator resources, and complete ebooks! 🗽 TRACTION: Launched in January 2021, Litnerd is a contracted vendor with the New York City Department of Education. We are used by over 14,000 students in their classrooms and growing at 60% MoM. 📚 THE PROBLEM: Today, schools spend approx. $20 Billion on reading and ELA programs. Yet 42% of their students still cannot read proficiently by the 4th grade. Furthermore, the decline in literacy and reading proficiency increases amongst Title 1 schools (schools where the majority of the student population is from low-income families). Litnerd is on a mission to change that! 💡 INSPIRATION: Lin-Manuel Miranda took a history book (the story of Alexander Hamilton) and brought it to life through art and theatre as the musical “Hamilton”. From there he created EduHam — a history teaching program used in public schools across the nation. So too will Litnerd teach students with that same inspiration of bringing subjects to life through story-telling. 💰 OFFER: Elementary schools get 20% off for September enrollment. Contact us to signup at this discounted price with the code PRODUCTHUNTER20. HOW YOU CAN HELP: We would LOVE introductions to principals at elementary schools! Please email us at contact@litnerd.com if you are willing to facilitate an intro! I look forward to the feedback of this community and cannot wait to answer any questions from you! Sincerely, Anisa and Team Litnerd!
Chris Nguyen
Why did you choose to go the school route versus creating something for parents to use at home?
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@chris_nguyen3 Great question! This is sort of what @mwseibel pressed us on during our YC interview. Here's the thing.. to solve the problem of childhood illiteracy, we are going to need an integrated approach that blends innovation, government collaboration and education reform. While the future of what this looks like remains unknown, one thing remains clear: the influx of startups focussed on the B2C consumerization of K-12 edtech will not work. This isn’t simply because parents can’t pay out of pocket. Rather, because for 95% of Americans, who are working a typical 9-5 job, school is free daycare! You cant afford to have your 6 year old learning from home if you have to go to work, no matter how fabulous the online teacher is! To truly disrupt the socio-economic divide and its impact on childhood illiteracy rates, we need a solution that works from the outside in - a solution that is free and integrated within traditional schools.
Jesse Scheff
I should get royalties for this name because I was a true lit nerd growing up. Nothing was more exciting to me than opening up a book and being transported to Middle Earth, Lilliput, or the Alaskan frontier. My reading empowered me to think independently, speak confidently, and dream constantly. Fast forward 20 years and there’s a lot more competition for kids’ attention today. I’m so excited to see Litnerd taking modern tools and making all these fantastic stories more accessible. Reading changed my life and I can’t wait to see Litnerd help it do the same for today’s students.
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@scheff61 Damn, Jesse - we'll setup another pizza and cocktail day to discuss royalties ;) This is so kind of you to share. We promise you Litnerd is going to change the staggering illiteracy stat by helping kids fall in love with reading. We won't stop!
Prasenjit Mukherjee
@scheff61 Second this. Books were the best escape growing up, and it is sad to know that this is not always accessible. I'm hoping to see something like Litnerd in every classroom!
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@scheff61 @pj_mukh it’s funny - a big part of success involves knowing what is cool for kids esp grades 4 and 5. We found mythical creatures, dungeons and dragons theme etc is what gets our students going at the older grades :) We’re pumped for September. We have our work cut out for us but the team is focussed and committed to helping students across that nation (starting with NYC)!
Prasenjit Mukherjee
This is, oh so awesome an idea! Like you point out though, the schools that need it the most are also currently very underfunded. What happens if a school cannot afford to fund this? Can an individual or company pay for it? Is that an option?
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@pj_mukh PJ you're totally right! So.... we recently launched a corporate partnership/sponsorship opportunity where companies may offer to fund our programs within schools. They may select the school or, they can choose from our existing wait-list. For more information https://litnerd.com/for-companies/
Uros Miljkovic
To see Litnerd go from idea to usage by 14,000 students is still surreal ♥️ Excited to contribute and make an impact. Litnerd to the moon!
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@uros_miljkovic Litnerd to the moooooon!! Let's go!
John Freddy Vega
Love the mission of Litnerd. But I have heard a lot about teachers spending their own time and money to help their students already. Does this add to their plate?
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@freddier Heya Freddy!! You are absolutely correct that US teachers typically spend four to ten hours (unpaid) each week planning their curriculum and $400-800 of their own money for classroom supplies. Litnerd doesn’t add to this teacher burden, and in fact eases it. We provide everything needed including: digital books, curriculum correlations, educator resources, complete lesson plans and recorded or live-streamed content (created by our Resident Teaching Artists). Our program augments the classroom’s existing English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum and integrates with the school’s Common Core curriculum with no additional work on the part of the teachers.
Devin Patel
Congratulations on the launch and awesome product! Question…how is literacy THAT low in the United States given the current spend on education? What are the main factors leading to this alarming stat?
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@devin_patel1 The reality is somewhat startling. 1 in 8 children growing up in America do not learn to read and 41% of fourth-grade students are reading at a second-grade level. The real-world impact of this? Approximately 85% of those in the juvenile court system are classified as functionally illiterate and about 70% of inmates in U.S. prisons can’t read above a fourth-grade level. Some two-thirds of students who lack proficient reading skills by the end of fourth grade will rely on welfare as adults. In other words, childhood illiteracy leads to a cycle of poverty that is difficult to break. Title 1 schools (schools with high percentage of students from low income population) comprise an alarming percentage of this statistic.
Neil Mathew
This is really interesting @theanisamirza. This might sound old fashioned but doesn’t the entertainment aspect take away from building a reading habit? How do you balance the video and reading ?
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@neilxm Hey buddy! Thanks for stopping by :) In fact, the correlation is the opposite - by utilizing a sticky medium (short form episodes that mimic kids favourite TV shows, characters they love, musical numbers etc), we spark students' interest in reading. The number one reason kids cite for not reading is that reading is BORING to them. By taking the boredom factor out of it, we help kids truly engage with the content they are learning and find books engaging. This is very much in line with the thesis behind Sesame Street (the founder of Sesame Street wanted to encourage reading in kids back in the 60s and she realized that TV is the best sticky medium to achieve this behaviour change and encourage reading at higher rates).
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@neilxm I should add, the format of our program is such that each episode doesn't build on the last. Instead, if you don't complete the assigned reading and worksheets, you will feel like you are missing out on what is happening in proceeding episodes! In this way, reading is layered in as a fundamental core to the program.
Aditya
@theanisamirza this is such a wonderful initiative! I've always believed that storytelling is an art, and we do need more of such storytellers to inculcate curiosity and interest in early learners :) More power to your team. Also, wondering if you support languages other than English?
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@adityavsc Thank you, Aditya!! story-telling and its impact on improving outcomes for childhood learning is certainly a well researched area and we're so excited to put this research-backed approach into action to help students across America! So, we recently started developing our bi-lingual programs with a focus on Spanish. But *for now* we are English only (as we are used to support ELA instruction in the classroom). However, future goals include not only other languages but other subjects too (think math, science, history etc).
Dan Carroll
This is awesome, @anisa! Reminds me of growing up & watching Wishbone on PBS (except this looks way more engaging).
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@anisa @bytingtheapple Thank you, Dan :) We're hoping that our programs can offer the right mix of entertainment (while being relevant/cool to a pretty tough crowd: NYC kids) and solid education (we follow Common Core curriculum with all our lesson plans and always pick age appropriate books that have just the right level of challenge!)
David J. Phillips
Litnerd is awesome - congrats on the launch @theanisamirza!!
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@davj Thank you, David!
Steve Liu
Congrats on the launch and traction with NYC!
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@steve_liu8 Thank you, Steve! It was a such a big win for us.
Anantharaman Pattabiraman
Congrats on the launch @anisa Mirza and a much needed product. Excited to see where you take this
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@anisa @anta_pattabiraman Thank you! We're excited to see this through in hopes to make a real dent on the staggering illiteracy stat.
Fawzy Abu Seif
Love this! Congrats on the launch!
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@fawzyabuseif Thank you!!
Kenneth Cassel
Love the idea! Hope it can come to our kids schools in Texas someday too! Congrats on building an awesome mission-driven company! Best of Luck!
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@kennethcassel Thank you so much, Kenneth! We have begun work with some districts in Texas but still v early stages :)
Katherine Sears
Being an avid reader and book lover myself, I am so excited that by joining team Litnerd I have the opportunity to help millions of students discover the confidence and passion for reading!
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@katherine_sears So excited to have you on board to help expand our mission!
Amine Skalli
Soooo so cool, love the idea !
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@amine_skalli Thank you, fam! Appreciate your support :)
Kaitlin Hearn
Tried out of curiosity!
Sofia Mirza
helpful and useful for educators to cut down on classroom prep time.
Syed Ahmed
Hi Anisa! Litnerd looks awesome. I'm curious, how would teachers adopt the platform, my mother is a teacher in Texas and if she were to use this for curriculum, what would be the steps to go about it?
Anisa Mirza
Maker
@syedahmedz Thank you, Syed. Our new teacher and new school onboarding process is a little manual right now. If your mom fills out this form online, info + pricing will def be sent to her and a demo or onboarding can be setup: https://litnerd.com/contact/