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Tablet app — early access April 2026

The ember was always there

A structured literacy tablet app grounded in Orton-Gillingham methodology and neuroscience. Built for CALTs, schools, and families navigating dyslexia.

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Reading failure isn't a knowledge gap. It's an energy crisis.

Dyslexia isn't about intelligence. The brain's reading network — three regions that must fire in sync — hasn't been wired yet. Without structured, multisensory intervention, children exhaust their working memory just decoding words, leaving nothing for comprehension, confidence, or joy.

1 in 5
Children have dyslexia, making it the most common learning difference
International Dyslexia Association
74%
Of children who are poor readers in 3rd grade remain poor readers in 9th grade
Annie E. Casey Foundation
$100/hr
Average cost of an OG tutoring session, with most students needing 2–3 per week
Typical Austin CALT rates
0
Structured practice tools that follow the actual OG session format between appointments
Gap in the market

Not another reading game. A real OG session on a tablet.

Ember doesn't gamify reading — it digitizes the gold-standard intervention. Every session follows the same three-part drill, word building, and decodable text format that CALTs use in person.

Orton-Gillingham aligned

Follows the structured, sequential, multisensory methodology that 40 years of meta-analyses confirm works. Not a loose interpretation — the actual session structure.

20-minute sessions

Short, focused, and designed for between-appointment practice. Drill, teach, practice, read, play — every session hits all five components in the right order.

Tutor dashboard

CALTs see exactly which phoneme patterns a student is mastering and where they're stuck. Between-session data means no wasted time in the next appointment.

Words unlock worlds

Every mastered word feeds into game mechanics — more words means more content, zones, and challenges. The reward IS more learning, disguised as play.

Adaptive difficulty

The curriculum engine tracks mastery at the individual phoneme level. Struggling with /th/ vs /f/? The system adds more exposures automatically — no tutor intervention needed.

VR-ready architecture

The tablet app is Phase 1. Every curriculum decision is designed to translate into immersive VR — spatial audio phonemes, 3D word building, and haptic feedback for multisensory binding.

Three brain regions. One reading network.

Dyslexia isn't a single deficit — it's a disconnection syndrome. The brain's reading network spans three regions that must fire simultaneously. Ember's activities are designed to force all three to coordinate, building the neural pathways that structured literacy has always targeted.

Visual word form area
The brain's letterbox. Located in the left fusiform gyrus, this region learns to instantly recognize letter patterns — turning "cat" from three separate symbols into one unit. When this region is strong, reading becomes automatic.
Ember activity: Rapid word flash, pattern sorting, word bank growth
Temporo-parietal cortex
The sound-letter bridge. Maps phonemes to graphemes — connecting the sound /k/ to the letter "c." This is the primary deficit region in dyslexia, where the three-part drill does its critical work.
Ember activity: Three-part drill, phoneme blending, sound-letter tap
Broca's area (IFG)
The speech production center. When a child sounds out a word, Broca's area activates and reinforces the phonological loop. Reading aloud isn't just practice — it's building the third leg of the neural tripod.
Ember activity: Read-aloud with speech recognition, word building with voicing

Want to help shape an app that's actually grounded in the science?

Join the early access list → We're interviewing CALTs, SLPs, and parents before writing a line of code.

20 minutes. Five components. The same structure every time.

Predictable structure reduces anxiety and cognitive load. Children with dyslexia thrive when they know exactly what comes next. Every Ember session follows the OG lesson arc.

4 min

Three-part drill

Visual → auditory → blending. See the letter, say the sound, blend the word. Fast-paced automaticity training.

3 min

New concept

Introduce one new phoneme pattern or spelling rule. Explicit, systematic, sequential — never more than one at a time.

4 min

Word building

Drag letter tiles to construct words using the new and review patterns. Multisensory: see it, hear it, build it.

5 min

Story reading

Decodable passages using only mastered patterns. Every word is readable — no guessing, no frustration, no failure.

4 min

Game time

Reward activities that secretly reinforce the same words. The child thinks they're playing. They're actually practicing.

Be the first to run a real Ember session with a learner.

Get early access → Early partners get direct input on curriculum pacing, pedagogy, and UI.

Tablet first. VR when you're ready.

We're building in phases — validating the curriculum engine on tablets before expanding to immersive VR. Every feature ships with data to prove it works.

0
Weeks 1–3

Diagnostic placement + core engine

Non-reading assessment determines where each student enters the OG progression. Sound recognition, blending probes, and phoneme segmentation — all audio-first so students who can't decode yet can still be accurately placed.

Assessment Placement engine Audio-first UX
1
Weeks 3–6

Three-part drill + word building

The core OG session components — visual-auditory-kinesthetic drill and letter tile manipulation. Targeting CVC words with short vowels first, then consonant digraphs and blends.

V-A-K drill Letter tiles CALT pilot
2
Weeks 6–8

Game unlock system

Mastered words unlock game zones — Forest, Cave, Mountain. Each zone uses the learned words as game mechanics, so the reward is actually more practice in disguise. Word bank becomes the visible progression system.

Game zones Word bank Retention engine
3
Weeks 8–12

Decodable reading + fluency

Controlled text passages using only taught patterns. Speech recognition tracks words per minute, accuracy, and prosody. Story content lives inside the game world — reading IS the gameplay.

Speech recognition Fluency tracking Decodable texts
4
Months 4–6

Morphology, red words + VR bridge

Advanced patterns: vowel teams, morphological awareness, sight word (red word) training. The curriculum engine is proven — now we translate the data model and progression logic into Godot for VR.

Morphology VR prototype Spatial audio

Three audiences. One reading network.

CALTs & OG tutors
You invest 45–60 minutes per session rewiring a child's reading brain. But between sessions, there's no structured practice tool that follows your methodology. Generic apps undo your scaffolding.
"Show parents their child's phoneme-level progress data. Retain clients longer. Justify your rate."
Schools & districts
Texas mandates dyslexia screening. Identified students need intervention — but there aren't enough CALTs, and existing software doesn't follow OG structure. You need scalable, evidence-based between-session support.
"Per-student seat license. Real progress data for IEP meetings. OG-aligned without OG staffing."
Families
Your child was flagged for dyslexia. Reading practice at home means daily tears, frustration, and embarrassment. You need something that transforms practice from a battle into something they ask to do.
"The most common word mothers used was 'frustration.' Ember turns that into progress you can see."

CALT, school, or family — we want to hear from you before we build.

Join the waitlist → Takes 15 seconds. No spam, just a conversation.

Help us build it right

We're talking to Austin CALTs, SLPs, parents, and schools before we write a line of app code. Join the early access list to shape what Ember becomes.

You're on the list

We'll reach out soon to learn about your experience with dyslexia intervention. Your perspective will directly shape what we build.