A word from our CEO

As we come upon the 75th anniversary of our founding, our legacy and our journey guides and informs the work we're doing today.

Learning Ally was first founded in 1948 by Anne T. Macdonald in the basement of the New York Public Library (NYPL) as Recording for the Blind (RFB). Anne led the NYPL's Women's Auxiliary in recording textbooks on vinyl phonograph discs to enable blinded WWII veterans to fulfill the promise of the GI Bill. Her vision to use technology to provide equitable educational opportunities to all is one that continues to guideour work today.

Since those early days, we have continued to leverage every advancement in technology-from digital recording to neural imaging to virtual professional learning-to equip educators with best-in-class solutions and practices to reach the students who need us most.

The journey, of course, does not end here. Using what we've learned over our long history, we're on a mission to solve the literacy crisis by 2040. With an innovative spirit and the support of this community, we can and we will.

Eager for our next steps,

Andrew Friedman
President and CEO

Changing the trajectory of
disadvantaged youth's lives

65%

of all fourth-graders read below proficiency = 35M students

more than
77%

of Black and Hispanic fourth-grader students read below proficiency

only
11%

of educators feel "completely prepared" to teach reading

Children with a reading-based learning difference are twice as likely to be suspended and three times as likely to drop out of high school than theis peers

Ameer Baraka, Keynote
Speaker at Learning Ally’s
Spotlight on Dyslexia 2022

An accomplished Emmy nominated actor and devoted dyslexia advocate committed to stopping the school-to-prison pipeline, Baraka was only a few words shy of a life sentence in prison, all because he couldn’t read.

“I was twenty-three years old and I was reading on a third-grade level. I made up my mind that for these four years I’ve got [in prison], I’m going to learn to read. We went over some phonics and words. I was just completely oblivious. And that’s the first time I heard of dyslexia.”

1. NAEP 2019 Mathematics and Reading Assessments
2. 2011 Data Book by Annie E. Casey Foundation
3. 2017 Nations Center for Learning Disabilities Annual Report

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Achieving Success and Thriving

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Our unique approach

Whole Child Literacy^TM

We approach solutions design with a holistic lens on the unique variables surrounding each student’s learning ability and differences. Driven by the science of reading, and the cognitive variables and socio-emotional influences of environment that may impact learning, we bring the latest research into practice, helping educators customize their literacy instruction to meet each students’ specific needs, to spur academic growth and positively change their life achievement trajectories.

Introducing Excite Reading^TM

We are very proud to announce that Excite Reading, our newest solution for PreK-2nd grade has won its first award, the Reader’s Choice Award in Early Education. Met with great reception in the market, Excite Reading™ bridges the gap between phonics and reading comprehension, building vocabulary and background knowledge through a library of rich, engaging e-books that explore the worlds of gardens, insects, music and more. Carefully designed lessons take a holistic approach to teaching words and creating context, deepening comprehension and making connections so emerging readers can reach their full potential.

Learn more >>

AWARDS And RECOGNITIONS

We would like to highlight two of the several awards won this year – the SIIA CODiE Award recognizing Learning Ally’s Audiobook Solution as the Best Learning Recovery app and the Reader’s Choice Award in the category of Early Education, recognizing our new solution, Excite Reading^TM as an innovation that is changing the early literacy landscape, setting students up for academic success.

See All Award and Accolades >>