Ello

People First

AI should Put People First. See our criteria for this AI Principle.

Aligns with this AI Principle:

• Ello's AI reading coach guides readers independently while encouraging adults to give specific praise after the reading work is done.
• Children were included in the design process in a participatory fashion, and Ello was playtested with children throughout development.
• Rather than fixating on errors, the app cultivates a positive learning environment. For example, Ello keeps the reading experience positive by never telling a child they got a word wrong. Instead, it asks readers to revisit words that its speech recognition model perceives a child to have mispronounced or misread.

Learning

AI should Promote Learning. See our criteria for this AI Principle.

Aligns with this AI Principle

• Ello uses a phonics-based (learning by sound) curriculum and proprietary speech recognition technology to listen to kids read out loud, help them navigate tricky words, and get them back on track when they get stuck.
• Ello lets more fluent readers continue without interruptions and only addresses mistakes at the end of each page.
• Ello keeps the reading experience positive by never telling a child they got a word wrong. Instead, it asks readers to revisit words that its speech recognition model perceives a child to have mispronounced or misread. Prompting readers to notice their errors is a strategy aligned with the science of reading.

Important limitations and considerations

• Ello uses phonics-based instruction, and does not approach literacy via other schools or approaches, such as the whole language approach.
• Ello operates exclusively in English.
• It is not specifically tailored for children with conditions like dyslexia.

Fairness

AI should Prioritize Fairness. See our criteria for this AI Principle.

Aligns with this AI Principle

• Ello combats the challenges in speech recognition accuracy by allowing parents to opt in to share their kids' speech recordings. This has allowed Ello to build its own speech recognition model that is more carefully attuned to its users' speech patterns. This is because the shared speech recordings collect a range of kids' speech patterns when reading the same set of books that Ello uses for its AI tutor.
• Ello also follows best practices in machine learning fairness and measures how well it recognizes children's speech across a number of factors, including accent, background, age, race, ethnicity, and speech pathology issues.

Important limitations and considerations

• Speech recognition technology can be very difficult to get right, especially for those whose speech isn't recognized by the product. When AI speech recognition models don't recognize diverse speech patterns like accents or dialects, it can lead to errors, or "false negatives." The converse, "false positives," can also happen, which in this case means the speech recognition model could recognize a word as correct when it was not. While both of these could hamper accuracy and make the technology less reliable, false negatives for Ello could also amplify unfair biases.
• Even with a massive amount of speech data, it's a huge challenge to align any speech recognition model across the almost endless variation that exists in spoken language.
• As Ello's user base grows, it may become more difficult for the product's speech recognition to keep up with the additional variations in language.
• Ello should not be used as a speech pathology assessment tool in the event that its speech recognition model hears or understands some children better than others.

Social Connection

AI should Help People Connect. See our criteria for this AI Principle.

Aligns with this AI Principle

• Ello's careful selection of books exposes young readers to a range of characters, themes, and stories that can help build empathy.
• It is unlikely that any child will become dependent on the Ello technology. Once they become proficient readers, they outgrow its benefits!

Important limitations and considerations

• Ello is focused on building readers' independence, so it does not directly support or encourage kids to connect with others.
• Kids could further benefit from more active and positive participation from parents and caregivers than the product naturally enables.
• While Ello can be an entirely independent activity, it is important for parents to monitor how well Ello is recognizing their child's unique speech patterns.

Trust

AI should Be Trustworthy. See our criteria for this AI Principle.

Aligns with this AI Principle

• Ello's content is limited to the books selected by the company, and it's reasonable to expect that it will not spread misinformation or disinformation.
• Based on Ello's community ratings from verified reviewers, parents trust it, too! While these ratings are impressive, it's crucial to note that they come from a self-selected group of users and may not represent everyone's experience.

Important limitations and considerations

• As of the time of this review, there's a lack of independent, peer-reviewed research on Ello's impact, which isn't surprising, as the product is relatively new. 
• Having an external expert assessment will be important when it comes to measuring how well Ello works, for whom, and under what conditions. This is especially important for Ello because this work is currently done by co-founders of the company, which could create a conflict of interest.
• Ello needs to ensure that its speech recognition model understands every child, emphasizing the importance of dialectical variation. Trust in Ello's effectiveness hinges on this crucial aspect.

Data Use

AI should Protect Our Privacy. See our criteria for this AI Principle.

Aligns with this AI Principle

• All parents must give some basic information about their child to Ello. Importantly, no audio data leaves the tablet by default, and parents are given a choice as to whether they share audio recordings of their kids with Ello. If they do, this can be to unlock personalized features, help Ello improve the product, or both.
• We give Ello top marks for making the sharing of children's audio recordings a choice, and a very clear one at that. Parents have to choose "yes" or "no" to complete the sign-up flow, and Ello makes it very clear what it will and won't do with this sensitive data.
• Ello designed its system to run entirely on device. This makes it possible for Ello to be used entirely offline.
• Parents will appreciate Ello's "Plain-English Privacy Policy" and that Ello does not currently sell data to anyone.
• Ello complies with the Children's Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA). It also complies with most of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Digital Services Act (DSA) as best practices. Because it is not yet available in schools, it does not currently comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) or the Student Online Personal Information Protection Act (SOPIPA).

Important limitations and considerations

• It is important to know that each person's unique speech data is PII is "Personally Identifiable Information" (PII) and cannot be effectively anonymized.
• While some of the specifics that Ello shared with us in the company's proprietary disclosures about its approach to data privacy is confidential, our review team expressed confidence in what the company shared about how it protects this sensitive data.

This review is distinct from Common Sense's privacy evaluations and ratings, which evaluate privacy policies to help parents and educators make sense of the complex policies and terms related to popular tools used in homes and classrooms across the country.

Kids' Safety

AI should Keep Kids & Teens Safe. See our criteria for this AI Principle.

Aligns with this AI Principle

• Because of Ello's specific focus, there are clear boundaries to what it can and cannot do. Kids can't interact with other users, and all books are hand-selected by the Ello team. Together, these create natural guardrails that make it a safe product for kids.
• Parents can also feel good that Ello's motivating and positive approach to correcting young readers helps to support kids' confidence and overall well-being.

Important limitations and considerations

• Regarding well-being, one area our reviewers flagged relates to the Common Sense AI Principle "Prioritize Fairness," and specifically how Ello handles "false negatives." For example, if a child is repeatedly asked to revisit words they've said correctly, but the speech model doesn't recognize this, it could be demoralizing for a child who is doing the right thing. If this happens, it is important for adults to reach out to the Ello team, as the speech recognition model could be missing a variation in speech patterns in this case.

Transparency & Accountability

AI should Be Transparent & Accountable. See our criteria for this AI Principle.

Aligns with this AI Principle

• Ello is clear that the Read with Ello app is meant to be used as a supplementary tool for young, struggling readers.
• The company is also clear that Ello is not a formal reading assessment or a clinical dyslexia intervention.

Violates this AI Principle

• Ello doesn't publish transparency reports as of the time of this review, which would provide insight into its internal assessments regarding performance and fairness, as well as details about its pedagogical approach.
• Without this information, parents and caregivers might find it challenging to assess if Ello aligns with their child's learning needs before trying the product for themselves.

Important limitations and considerations

• While some parents have reported positive outcomes for kids with dyslexia or other literacy learning conditions, Ello isn't primarily designed for these specific conditions.