Learning Ally HQ

Learning Ally is resolute in increasing the number of students who are proficient in reading from 35% to 50%, translating to 20.3 million students to 28.2 million students.In our 75-year history, we have built expertise in transforming the lives of struggling learners, becoming a trusted partner to and advocate for over 450,000 educators in over 21,000 schools, reaching over 2M students nationwide.

Our Unique Approach: Learning Ally places the child at the center of our work. We use a three-pronged framework to turn research into practice to empower educators to solve the literacy problem:

1) Research - We work with research partners like MIT, Stanford, Yale, and University of California San Francisco Center for Dyslexia to understand how children learn.

2) Learning Approach - We put the child at the center, factoring in not only literacy practices, but how social-emotional learning, executive functioning, and home environments impact child development.

3) Solutions - We bake together literacy best practices, student factors, and family engagement opportunities to create “Whole Child” Solutions that are engaging, developmentally-appropriate, culturally-relevant, and adaptable for both classroom settings and home learning. Our early research shows that our approach and solution doubles the rate of reading growth.

In Learning Ally’s 75-year history, we have built scalable, sustainable education solutions for over 450,000 educators and 2 million students in 21,000 schools nationwide. Our leaders are experts in education, literacy learning differences, and early childhood education—and lend skills from a range of sectors, including decades of experience working with school districts, scaling edtech solutions, and building program sustainability. As a result, we are uniquely positioned to lead coalition-building efforts to drive systems thinking and design for enduring and transformative institutional change.

At the district and school level, we work closely with communities to identify and bring together the right partners for successful program implementation, such as after-school and other service providers, nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, and entrepreneurs. These local partnerships also help ensure that our work reflects and actively engages the communities we serve. For example, we partner with the Achievement Network and the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest, diverse district in the country.
Key research partners include:

-University of California San Francisco Center for Dyslexia. Research and solutions that address neurological learning differences.
-MIT and Dr. John Gabrieli. An expert in behavioral neuroscience and research partner for several Learning Ally efficacy studies.
-Yale’s C8 Sciences. Brain training to improve learning, cognitive function, ADHD, and mood.
-Stanford University and Sacramento County Office of Education. Partnering to build statewide capacity for research-based tools (such as executive functioning and speech pathology services) to serve students in low-income schools who wouldn’t otherwise have access.
-Florida State University, MIT, and UCSF researchers worked in partnership with Learning Ally to validate a new, state-of-the-art early literacy screener which has the potential to offer greater accuracy in understanding the learning needs of young students on a wide range of skills tied to literacy outcomes.

Overview: Today we impact 2 million students and 450,000 educators in 21,000 schools nationwide. Our school renewal rate stands strong at 90%.
Our Approach: Learning Ally continues to build solutions to empower educators and students to solve the literacy program. Our strategic focus areas include the Learning Ally Audiobook Solution, Professional Learning for Educators, and our new Early Literacy Program. Each year, we strive to leverage the latest research on the science of reading, refine the technology platforms that allow us to deliver our solutions, and develop new resources that help ensure all students have equitable access to education.
Accomplishments
-Learning Ally won the T&L Award of Excellence from Tech & Learning for our PreK-6 Professional Courseware on Effective Brain-Based Literacy Instruction. This award celebrates exceptional educational technology supporting teachers and students in education.
Spotlight Learning
-This year, our annual Spotlight on Dyslexia Conference saw over 5,192 registrants (20% more than last year at this time) from 48 states and 10 countries. 92% of attendees loved or liked the platform and there were 1,795 live attendees on June 7-8. Our top sessions for live audiences were our dyslexia simulation, “A Student’s Journey with Dyslexia”, the Awards Ceremony, Dr. Stanislas Dehaene’s keynote, and The Right to Read film.
-With almost 7,000 members, the Learning Ally Educator Community is a safe space for educators dedicated to literacy leadership. This year the Learning Ally Educator Community was announced as the finalist for two CMX “best of” awards: Best Growth Marketing Community and Best Executive Leadership of a Community Team, Elizabeth Zwerg, Learning Ally Community Manager. The Community won the award for Best Growth Marketing Community.
Our Volunteers
This past year, 2,790 volunteers donated over 35,000 hours of service. Our Growth and Strategic Partnerships team engages volunteers from around the world in strategic service projects that support reach, impact, and revenue. Our global community of volunteers donate their skills in a variety of areas, including: creating audiobooks in the Learning Ally Audiobook Solution and Excite Reading, supporting the production process as narrators, quality assurance testers and more. This team also enables Corporate Social Responsibility with top companies around the world by providing meaningful employee engagement opportunities through group volunteer events. This past year, our Corporate Volunteer Program was supported by 41 corporate partners and over 1,200 corporate employee volunteers, donating over 2,500 hours of service.