Headsprout goes head to head on early reading

Internet Strategies for Education Markets: The Heller Report, Nov, 2002

How does a David fight Goliath in this tough education market? For early reading newcomer Headsprout (www.headsprout.com, Seattle, WA), taking on the niche carved out by reading giants such as Riverdeep means throwing a few stones. The seemingly uphill fight looks to be well worth it, for reading is a hot ticket item this year in American schools. Reading First will provide about $900 million in state grant monies in fiscal year 2002. Reading First promotes the use of interventions backed by scientifically-based research to improve reading instruction for K-3 students, and is meant to ensure that kids read well by the time they leave third grade. This year's budget is about three-times the money budgeted for 2001, and it's just the beginning of President Bush's commitment to spend $5 billion over a six year period to make sure every child can read by the time he or she leaves third grade.

Headsprout ceo Greg Stikeleather would like to get a piece of that money, and he believes his Reading Basics product, an on-line early reading program designed to teach the typical 4- to 7-year old the critical skills and strategies essential for reading success, is simply better at teaching phonemic awareness and tracking data on young readers than any other product on the market. Part of that confidence stems from the recent hiring of Dr. Janet Twyman, vice president of instructional development for Headsprout, and formerly executive director of the Fred S. Keller School, a model early childhood center, where she held the position of Senior Behavior Analyst and Research Scientist.

In an atmosphere driven by scientifically-based research mandates, Twyman understands the crucial role of data mining. She says that Reading Basics analyzes 'click by click' data and tracks every component of every skill being tested, and has already analyzed 7 million responses at the 'episode level', the individual online sessions in which each kid participates. Educators, learning scientists, and instructional designers have observed more than 1,000 children interacting with the program in the Headsprout learning laboratory and at home, measuring the effectiveness of the lessons in teaching fundamental reading skills. Children take pre-and post-tests of essential skills to measure acquisition, application and retention of skills from lesson to lesson.

Stikeleather and Twyman think this gives Headsprout an edge over Riverdeep's Destination Reading products. For instance, Twyman says that Destination Reading takes away the error when kids don't answer correctly in a phoneme identification session, whereas Reading Basics keeps cycling back to the weakest part of the child's understanding. Stikeleather argues that Headsprout includes more ways to pinpoint exactly where individual students are in the learning continuum, thereby offering a more 'scientifically rigorous' approach to early reading. It is currently being piloted in seven schools, including four ESL classrooms in the Seattle area.

(Debbie Galdin, manager of Public Relations at Riverdeep doesn't agree with Stikeleather, by the way. "Destination Reading supports the development of phonemic awareness by offering students numerous opportunities in multiple contexts to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds in spoken words," she says. As for data, Galdin notes that Riverdeep's Learning Management System offers instantaneous reporting, and prescriptive assignments. LMS gives teachers and administrators the tools they need to guide students toward success by continually evaluating students and linking those evaluations to Destination Reading curricula, she says. But this is 'David's' story, so we'll let him tell it.)

Parental Buy-in

But if the $900 million school reading market doesn't listen to his message, Stikeleather has another plan. Ever the pragmatist, Stikeleather is targeting moms and dads whom he is certain will be willing to shell out "five easy payments of only $19.95" to get a scientifically-based reading program for their kids. Stikeleather compares Reading Basics to a product such as Hooked on Phonics], which costs a whopping $300 to $400, and says parents will be thrilled at the level of detail that can be spewed out on exactly where little Johnny is in his ABCs with just a few simple clicks of the mouse.

It's a message that should be hitting home with parents. According to The Public Library Association, if a child is a poor reader at the end of first grade, there is an almost 90 percent probability that the child will be a poor reader at the end of fourth grade. Headsprout's focus on letting kids go through a self-paced program that teaches phonics and fluency through interactivity and individual (read adaptive) responses seems like a sure way to hook parents who are concerned that their children get a head start in reading -- and who don't have the time or expertise to teach the concepts themselves. Parents even get email 'sprout' cards or flash cards after junior goes through his lessons, for instance, reinforcing the child's areas of weakness, and taking the work out of at-home teaching.