That's the goal. That's the North Star. From the beginning, that's what Rally Reader was purpose-built to do.

What you might be wondering:

If you're a parent or educator reading this, I understand your skepticism. We're living through a moment when AI gets applied to everything. This guide addresses your important questions: Is this tool helping my child build real skills? What, if anything, is Rally doing with my child's data? And is this just one more screen?

What We Built and Why We Built It

The Problem: Instruction Alone Isn't Enough

Two seemingly contradictory things are true:

• 70% of kids in the US aren't reading at grade level ¹
• Schools are getting really good at teaching kids how to read

Why Rally Reader? Because there's a gap.

Educators have worked diligently to improve reading instruction (structured literacy, phonics-first approaches, Science of Reading frameworks). But instruction is only half the equation.

The Solution: Instruction + Practice = Skill

Educators provide the instruction. Rally Reader supports the practice.

Think about it this way. An all-star basketball coach can teach free throw mechanics (stance, release, follow-through), but only hours of practice from the athlete transform instruction into skill on the court. A kid can get guitar lessons from an actual rock star, but practice makes the musician. Reading works the same way.

What's Missing

Schools are working hard to provide effective instruction. What's missing is the structured, supported practice that converts that instruction into fluent, joyful reading. Kids who learn to read become kids who love to read. And when kids read more, they expand vocabulary and background knowledge, strengthen comprehension, and build the critical thinking needed to excel in school and beyond.

Rally's Role

In a perfect world, every child would have a supportive adult, available at just the right moment, to listen when they read aloud and gently correct errors.

Rally isn't here to replace parents or teachers. It's here for the moments when a supportive adult can't be, providing valuable error-correction during independent practice. It matters because correcting mistakes is essential for learning.

What Happens When a Child Reads on Rally

Step 1: Choose a book from 50,000 titles (Penguin Random House, Scholastic, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Disney, and others). Scholastic's research is blunt about why that matters: when kids choose, they read. ²

Step 2: Choose a reading mode

• Mode 1: Silent Reading A child reads silently with access to vocabulary support. Progress tracking and real-time error correction are not available.
• Mode 2: Oral Reading with Feedback (No Recording) A child reads aloud with real-time feedback from Rally's digital reading coach. Instant correction on mispronounced or skipped words. This mode tracks progress, including accuracy, Persistence, Sight Word mastery and Trip Words, a feature that creates customized flashcards to encourage targeted practice of specific errors. Recording is off by default.
• Mode 3: Oral Reading with Feedback + Active Opt-in Screen Recording Same as Mode 2, plus active opt-in screen recording for parent-teacher meetings, student-teacher meetings, and assessment. Rally records the page of the book and the student's voice. There is no front-facing camera, in any mode, ever. Recording is off by default, requires an active opt-in, and can be turned off at any time. Full detail on what is captured, how it is stored and how long we keep it is in "How recording actually works" below.

Step 3: Motivation and Progress Tracking

In both oral reading modes, children's effort becomes visible in rewarding ways. For example:

• Trip Words Every child stumbles on certain words. Those words automatically become personalized flashcards. Instead of generic review, a child practices the specific words they struggled with. Targeted practice accelerates progress.
• Sight Words 1,000 high-frequency words make up 75% of all K-8 books. Building automaticity with these words is essential for fluency. Rally turns that work into a game called Word Wiz. When a child reads these words correctly, they sparkle. This visual celebration of hard work is immediate and rewarding. Once a word is read aloud correctly three times, it is "won." Win 125 words to complete a level; win eight levels to complete the game and master the 1,000-word foundation.
• Persistence We track accuracy (the percent of time a child reads a word correctly on the first attempt). And we developed our own metric to measure something more important: whether a child sticks with it. If a child reads a word correctly after multiple tries, they get 100% on Persistence. We celebrate the willingness to work through challenges, not just instant perfection.

What This Creates

Rally makes the invisible work of reading visible. Kids feel seen. Their effort is recognized. And that clarity and celebration changes how they see themselves as readers.

Does Rally Have Proven Results?

YES! Rally works because it's built on practices that four decades of literacy research have proven. We will share more about that research at the end of the article, but before we go any further, we want to provide some clear data points about Rally Reader's efficacy.

We recently completed a study of 1,651 students in Grades 2-6 across the 2024-25 school year, measured with iReady and district assessment scores.

Grade 3 reading was a key focus of our study. Third grade marks the transition from learning to read to reading to learn. It is the point where a reading gap starts to compound. Students who are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade are four times more likely to leave high school without a diploma. ³

Third graders who used Rally as designed grew 132% faster than their peers who did not, a gain of 11.4 iReady points (p=0.002).

That is a key headline, not the whole study. Fifth graders who used Rally as designed gained 21.6 points on the CAASPP state summative assessment (p=0.048) and 20.0 iReady points (p=0.010). Across every grade and every user, including students who used Rally far less than recommended, the gain was 8.3 iReady points (p<0.001). More detail on all of it is below.

What we learned that surprised us:

These results came at a remarkably low dose. Students in the study logged just 3.5 total hours of supported oral reading with Rally across the entire school year, roughly six and a half minutes per week, and the gains were still impressive.

Although Rally users show those gains with low-dose usage, we continue to recommend more reading time. Our recommendation is fifteen minutes a day, consistent with the daily independent reading practice most literacy research supports. The Claremont results provide a baseline. Treat them as the least you should expect, not the most.

Quality instruction + supported practice = measurable change, whether or not a child faces learning challenges, and whether or not there are books at home. ⁴

What Rally Does Not Do

Every tool should tell you where it stops. Here is where we stop.

Rally does not teach a child how to read. Phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding are the foundation, and building that foundation is skilled instructional work that takes training and judgment. This is best done by educators. The field has gotten markedly better at it over the past decade, and the shift toward structured literacy is one of the real success stories in education. That work is not ours, and we would not do it better.

Rally comes next. Passing the DMV written test is not the same as being a confident driver. That takes hours behind the wheel. Once a child can decode, what they need is time on real pages. That is the part we are built for. It is also the part that all too often goes missing, because it requires a patient adult listening to one child at a time. Everything Rally does rests on instruction an educator delivered first.

Rally is not a diagnostic tool. We do not screen for dyslexia or any other learning difference, we do not identify a reading disability, and nothing on our dashboards should be read as a diagnosis. What we provide is continuous evidence of what a child does when they read: which words trip them, how often, whether they push through. That is useful information to bring to a reading specialist. It is not a substitute for one.

Rally does not assess comprehension. What we measure is oral reading: accuracy, words per minute, Persistence, words read. Fluency built through Rally supports comprehension, and the Claremont study showed strong gains in both literature and informational comprehension on iReady. But the assessment of whether a child understood the chapter belongs to an educator, and we are careful not to imply otherwise.

Rally is not an intervention program. A child who cannot yet decode needs targeted instruction from a person, not practice from an app. Rally will not close that gap, and we will say so plainly to any school that asks us to.

Rally does not replace a person. It is what happens in the hours when a supportive adult is not available.

Let's Talk About Speech Recognition, AI, and Data

Parents ask us two questions about AI and data:

• Is this just AI doing the thinking for my kid?
• Are you harvesting my child's data to train your models?

Our answers: no, and no.

What Rally Reader Is Not: Generative AI

No new content is created. Rally Reader does not generate text, predict what comes next, or do the thinking for your child.

What Rally Reader Is: Speech Recognition and Pattern-Matching

Rally's pattern-matching has three steps: listen, compare, flag.

Here's how it works. When a child reads aloud, Rally listens in real time to what they say. It compares their speech to the words on the page. When there's a mismatch, Rally flags it so the child can try again. Listen, compare, flag. That's the complete scope of what the AI does.

The thinking remains entirely with the child. Rally simply tells them when they've misread or skipped a word.

Rally Reader + Data

Here's our core promise to you:

Before reaching a child's device, our speech recognition models are trained on public and acquired data. This data is intended specifically for speech model training. We choose sources that help us understand the broadest range of voices, including accents and speech impediments. Your child's data is never incorporated into our models.

Once your child reads on Rally, their data stays secure and is used only to help them see and accelerate reading progress. We don't sell data, and we don't use student data to build AI models.

How we use and store data (by mode):

• Mode 1: Silent Reading Minutes read, reading streak, badges, book titles accessed, position in each book
• Mode 2: Oral Reading with Feedback (No Recording) Everything in Mode 1, plus: Misread words, Sight Words mastered, numerical metrics (accuracy, words per minute, Persistence, words read)
• Mode 3: Oral Reading with Feedback + Active Opt-in Screen Recording Everything in Mode 2, plus: Screen recordings for asynchronous playback

Why we collect it: To help each child see and accelerate their reading progress.

What we DON'T do with this data:

• We don't sell it
• We don't use it to train AI models
• We don't share it with third parties
• We don't use it for marketing or profiling

How recording actually works

Screen recording is off by default. It turns on only when a parent, educator or student actively opts in, and it can be turned off at any time. It is available on iOS only.

What is captured: the page the child is reading and the child's voice. There is no front-facing camera, in any mode, ever. Recordings exist for three purposes:

• So that an educator or parent can listen to a read-aloud they could not be present for
• So that a child's oral reading can be documented over time for parent-teacher or student-teacher conferencing, and for assessment
• So that a child can hear their own reading. Sometimes that is a teaching tool for educators working on prosody, the rhythm and expression of reading aloud, the part that makes a sentence sound like natural speech rather than a list of words. And sometimes it is simply a chance for a child to hear how far they have come, how much more fluent they are now than they were at the start of the school year.

One clarification, because precision matters here. The speech recognition runs on your child's device. That is a claim about processing. Recordings and progress metrics are a separate thing: they sync to the dashboard in the cloud, because a dashboard you or your teacher cannot see cannot be useful. We do not want those two facts blurred together, so we are stating them separately.

Retention and deletion. Recordings are encrypted in transit and when stored. Access is limited to the educator of record, the parent or guardian on the account, and the student.

Rally Reader keeps your child's data for as long as your account stays active, so their reading progress and history are there whenever they need them. If you close your account, we hold the data for at least 90 days in case you change your mind, and no longer than 12 months. But you don't have to wait. You can request deletion of your child's data at any time. Write to us at Hello@RallyReader.com and put Delete in the subject line. We complete deletions within 30 days.

Where we sit on compliance

• FERPA. Rally Reader meets or exceeds all FERPA standards. When a school adopts Rally, we operate as a school official with a legitimate educational interest, under the district's direct control. The data belongs to the district and the family, not to us.
• COPPA. Rally Reader meets or exceeds all COPPA standards. In school settings, consent flows through the school, as COPPA permits. For family accounts, we obtain verifiable parental consent at signup and collect only what the product needs to function.

A Note on Screen Time

Parents ask us two questions about AI and data. There is a third one that usually comes first: my kid already has too many screens. Why would I add another?

Fair question. Here is what is actually on the screen.

A page of a book. No ads. No autoplay. No infinite scroll. No recommendation feed engineered to keep a child watching. No comments, no followers, no strangers. There is no version of our business that improves when a child stays on a screen longer than the reading requires.

We do use streaks, badges and daily goals, and we will be direct about why. They exist to get a child to a finish line, not to move the finish line further away. The daily goal is typically fifteen minutes. When a child reaches it, Rally tells them they are done. That may make Rally one of the only apps on the device that celebrates stopping.

A child on Rally is reading real books, nothing AI-generated. It is not another thing competing with reading. It is reading.

A Note on Paper Books

We love paper books.

Rally Reader is run by book people. We love the beauty and tactile nature of physical books. There is strong research showing that, beyond childhood, paper books foster deep reading. ⁵ That experience matters and is wonderful. They don't require batteries.

Rally's role: We're a bridge.

Rally isn't here to replace paper books. Rally is a bridge to more reading.

How it works in practice:

• A child discovers an author on Rally and asks for other books in the series in paperback
• A teacher uses Rally for daily oral reading practice, then sends kids home with paper books
• A parent uses Rally to help build their child's confidence enough that they want to read paper books without fear

The best literacy-rich homes and classrooms have both: Digital practice when a supportive adult isn't available, and paper books for screen-free reading. The combination works.

What We Stand For

Our mission is simple: Help more kids become better readers.

How we do it:

• We partner with the largest global publishers, who have vetted Rally and entrust us to distribute real, high-quality books.
• We build tools that support kids as they practice reading.
• We turn great instruction into reading skill.

What we measure:

• Reading stamina through goal-setting and progress celebration
• A custom Persistence metric that rewards stick-to-itiveness
• The invisible work of reading made visible

Why we named it Rally: We named the company Rally because every kid deserves a Rally Squad: people who see their effort, celebrate their growth, and believe in their potential.

What this looks like: When a child sees their own progress, something shifts. They stop thinking of themselves as a struggling reader. Their self-perception changes. They start to own their learning, which boosts agency, motivation, and confidence.

The Conversation

An invitation and why skepticism matters:

Skepticism about technology in education is warranted. Not all ed tech is created equal.

What we're hoping for:

Look at the research. Think about whether fifteen minutes a day of supported oral reading practice, in the context of 50,000 books, makes sense for your child. We're asking for your scrutiny. Not because we have something to hide, but because your questions help us do better.

If you have questions, we want to hear them. We want to have honest conversations about technology's role in childhood literacy.

What this is really about:

This isn't just about Rally Reader. It's about whether we'll give this generation the literacy skills and confidence they need to think critically, engage civically, and build the lives they want.

Thank you for reading this.

Have thoughts? Questions? We'd love to hear from you. Hello@RallyReader.com.

If you want your email to come straight to me, please put Andrea in the subject line.

Andrea JohnsonFounder and CEO, Rally Reader

Appendix: The Research and the Study

The two sections that follow are for readers who want the evidence in full: the literacy research Rally is built on, and the details of the independent efficacy study behind the results cited above.

The Research: Four Research-Backed Elements and Why Rally Reader Works

Rally works because it's built on practices that four decades of literacy research have proven. Rally offers a scalable, measurable, affordable way to follow established best practices.

1. Volume of Reading Matters A 2024 meta-analysis of 47 studies ⁶ found that in-school independent reading produces meaningful gains in word recognition and reading attitude. Rally drives volume through 50,000+ popular books, daily goals, and reading streaks. Rally's student and teacher dashboards measure actual reading, not minutes in-app.

2. Oral Reading with Feedback The National Reading Panel concluded that guided oral reading with real-time feedback produces significant gains across all grade levels. Rally delivers individualized feedback on every read-aloud session, at a frequency no single teacher could match.

3. Choice and Authentic Books A meta-analysis of 49 studies ⁷ found that when reading instruction addresses both motivation and skills, the impact is substantially larger. Rally puts an enormous assortment of high-quality full books and authentic choices in the student's hands.

4. Low-Anxiety Practice Research documents that reading anxiety disrupts reading. Rally's feedback is private, errors are corrected without an audience, and growth is celebrated.

The Study: Claremont Unified School District

We recently completed a third-party-validated efficacy study (ESSA Tier 3 criteria), and the results were truly excellent. Here are a few highlights.

• Who: 1,651 students in Grades 2-6
• When: 2024-2025
• Measurement: iReady adaptive assessment (the assessment used by that district) and CAASPP, California's annual state summative assessment

The Headline Results

Third graders who used Rally as designed grew 132% faster than their peers who did not.

Results by Grade:

• Grade 3 (protocol-adherent students): +11.4 iReady points = 132% greater growth (p=0.002)
• Grade 5 (protocol-adherent students): +21.6 points on the state CAASPP summative assessment (p=0.048) and +20.0 iReady points (p=0.010)
• All grades (all users): +8.3 iReady points (p<0.001)

Across-the-Board Improvements:

• 100% of Rally classrooms outperformed non-Rally classrooms
• All 5 iReady metrics improved: Literature comprehension, informational comprehension, vocabulary, word analysis, and phonics

Why This Matters

The 4x dropout risk that follows a child out of third grade is not a life sentence. The literacy gap is real but not inevitable, and a year of extra growth in the grade that matters most is exactly the kind of thing that changes a trajectory.