About this project
The primary goal of our product is to help Mexican-American families begin to bridge the educational gap their children face when entering school.
¡Leí Leí! empowers families to overcome this hurdle by:
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Teaching parents about this educational gap their children will face
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Providing access to our app’s unique literacy exercises so kids can start building a necessary foundation before starting formal school
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Connecting parents to additional resources
We hope to dispel misconceptions about the accessibility of English for children in households where Spanish may be the first or only language spoken. ¡Leí Leí! helps children gain early literacy skills in Spanish and English while supporting their cultural identity through characters that both speak and look like them.
As the world becomes more and more globalized every day, we realize more and more people want to learn a second language and that their goals are often placed on their children as well. This indicates the wide range of opportunities for the principles of our product to extend to other languages in the future.
As a whole, the Hispanic population is an underserved minority group that is growing very rapidly. ¡Leí Leí! connects with first-generation Mexican American children, ages 3–5, before they enter school, to give them a curriculum that reinforces their early Spanish literacy while introducing English. It is important that these children gain proficiency in their native language, as these skills facilitate their English comprehension and literacy.
But why Mexican-American? The Hispanic population as a whole is facing an educational gap. Those Hispanics of Mexican origin make up 60% (Pew Hispanic).
Teachers and educators are struggling to find bilingual material to help the Hispanic community bridge the academic achievement gap. Most of the resources currently at their disposal are outdated books, none of which reflect the new cultural identity of today’s first-generation Hispanics.
Our team has already begun building a demo version of the app, labeled Appisode 0. Once this is completed we will move forward with testing at the community centers where I have made arrangements, including Union Settlement, Mano-A-Mano, and Sotomayor Community Center NYCELL. We will bring the demo to these centers, as well as printed information about the educational gap for parents and teachers to take home. We will make revisions to Appisode 0 based on their feedback.
Why Kickstarter? This kickstarter will fund our creation of Appisode 1, an improved version of the demo based on the feedback we receive from our demo testing. Appisode 1 will include more games, characters, and the parents’ toolbox. This version will be the system we follow for the remaining 5 appisodes in the series.
- ¡Leí Leí! is a series of Bilingual appisodes smartphone.
- They teach the 5 early literacy skills: letter recognition, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, print motivation, and narrative.
- An appisode is an animated episode encapsulated in an interactive app.
- Each appisode is composed of scenes that revolve around a letter.
- Each scene contains 3 games and a review.
Studies show that, among Spanish speakers, the level of development in the child’s native tongue is a strong predictor of their English language development. With ¡Leí Leí!, users must complete the Spanish version of each appisode in order to unlock its English version, which mirrors the structure of the Spanish one.
Being Mexican-American I know that being family oriented is a big part of our cultural identity. And that's why ¡Leí Leí! uses a relatable cast of friendly, bilingual Mexican-American characters to teach our early literacy skills.
At the end of each appisode, the parents receive a "Consejo" or a piece of advice on how to continue the lesson outside of the app. An example would be to show + tell the parents to look for other objects around the home that start with the letter A to build their child’s vocabulary.
The parents’ toolbox can be accessed at any time for information about the literacy skills currently being covered and tips for using the app more effectively. It also connects them to additional resources and literacy initiatives. And of course all of the information is available en español.
Project Time: Sept 15 — February 15
Sept 15 – Oct 15 Kickstarter Campaign: During this time the ¡Lei Lei! team will be finishing up and refining the demo version 'Appisode 0.' We will then be taking this version to test with our focus groups at the community centers mentioned above. As we learn from these sessions, we will begin outlining Appisode 1.
Oct 15 – Feb 15 Appisode 1 development: With the funds raised by this kickstarter, we will gather every member of our team to start building Appisode 1. Our full team includes a bilingual educator, designer, voice actress, developer, and manager.
Nov 15 – Dec 15 Reward delivery: We send a “Thank You!” to everyone who pledged to this campaign
Dec 15 – Jan 15 Focus group testing: We take a completed Appisode 1 back to the community centers for more testing.
Dec 15 – Feb 15 We relaunch the ¡Lei Lei! website to include the names of everyone who has contributed via kickstarter. We will also make Appisode 0 and Appisode 1 available to play!
The pledge you make to this kickstarter will pay for the work done by our team members as well as technology assets:
Concept and Design–Francisco J Hernandez
App Developer–Francisco Cervantes
Campaign Manager–Jazmin Chavez
Bilingual Educator–Rebeca Madrigal
Interactive Designer–Undisclosed
Music + Sound–Ozzi Hernandez
Instructional Designer–Rebecca Madrigal
Voice Actress–Pita Rivas
Marketing People–Jazmin Chavez + Pita Rivas
Technology–Backup Drive, Flash drives, Google Drive space, website
Legal–LLC, legal + contracts
Kickstarter Rewards
External Evaluator–Pilar Gonzalez
Focus Groups–Mano-A-Mano, Union Settlement, Sotomayor Community Center Gift Cards for participating families
I believe ¡Leí Leí! will give parents the necessary tools to ensure a more successful future for their children—and even have fun in the process. It is our responsibility to help the members of our own community make the most of their educational journey, and the first step toward achieving that goal is bridging the educational gap they currently face.
I hope you all will join us in our mission. Donate, share, and spread the word of ¡Leí Leí!
Special Thanks
We would like to give a special thanks to Nicole Leach, Juan Aguirre, Wendy Miron, Pita Rivas, Sean Ryan, Jessica Johnson, Donica Ida, and Monica So for helping, supporting and assisting Francisco C., Jazmin, and myself, setting up our Kickstarter campaign.
Testimonials
Risks and challenges
We are transforming our concept into a real product! We have to build, test, and then distribute Appisode 1.
We've created a flexible timeline for bringing on other people to assist with the building. We are minimizing risk by bringing established team members we trust and have worked with before. We have already cultivated relationships with Mano-A-Mano, Union Settlement and other NYC-based community centers for the testing of our beta version. Testing will ensure we’ve taken the necessary time to find potential problems or bugs in the product before we distribute. We are not rushing this product into the hands of the population it’s meant to serve. We have outlined three stages: a demo version, Appisode 0, and finally Appisode 1.
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Funding period
- (30 days)