About
English Islands
English Islands is an AI-powered literacy platform designed to help every student become a confident reader. We partner with schools to provide research-aligned phonics tutoring - meeting each student exactly where they're at, while empowering them to learn independently.
Our platform listens as students read aloud, delivers immediate feedback, and gives teachers clear, actionable insights, so that no child is overlooked.
Why We Exist
We built English Islands to solve challenges educators face every day:
Teachers need to differentiate for multiple different reading levels.
Closely monitoring progress across an entire classroom is challenging.
Many students don't get support outside of school, and start to fall behind.
Our Mission
Srong literacy skills open the door to lifelong learning, confidence, and opportunity.
Our mission is to:
Support independent learning, so that students can continue learning even while their teacher is working with other students.
Provide teachers with powerful data on missed letter-sound pairs, so that they know exactly where their students need more support.
Our Story
As a former educator and administrator, I was always frustrated with how little time I had to help my students who needed it the most. And when my students would go home, some would get a lot of support, while others would get none at all...and it really broke my heart to see those students falling behind.
I founded English Islands to solve those problems. The platform was built to support independent learning, so that students can:
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keep learning even while their teacher is working with other students
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continue to progress even if their parents are unable to help at home
It was also built to provide teachers with clear, actionable data on exactly where their students need the most support.
Today, English Islands continues to grow through close collaboration with teachers, principals and district leaders. We are grateful to now serve schools coast-to-coast across North America, and beyond!
Erica Derrickson, Founder of English Islands