The research

The short version

Every table and book is built on two things: research on how kids actually learn, and ten years of teaching kids one-on-one, in classrooms and online. We say which part is which. Research sets the order inside each skill. How the skills are woven together is teaching judgment, and each ladder says so.

What every learning tool shares

Hands, then pictures, then symbols.

A kid builds it, then sees it drawn, then writes it. The hands-on part fades as understanding grows, and comes back whenever something new gets harder.

Research: Fyfe, McNeil, Son & Goldstone (2014), Educational Psychology Review. IES practice guide, Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics (Fuchs et al., 2021).

Start small, and climb by the kid's own wins.

A new kid always starts at the beginning, and moves up only after real wins across more than one sitting. It never moves a kid down on its own.

Research: spacing and mixing earlier work back in helps kids remember and tell problems apart. Rohrer, Dedrick & Stershic (2015); Cepeda et al. (2006).

Teaching judgment: the exact pacing errs slow, and gets tuned with real kids.

One dial for the grown-up.

Easier and Harder, one tap each. The full path is one tap behind for anyone who wants to see it.

A grown-up beside the kid.

Every learning tool puts a real person next to the kid instead of replacing them.

Mistakes stay quiet.

No buzzers, no "wrong," no streaks to lose. A kid sees "not yet" and tries again.

Math ladders

The Toy Box (counting, the very beginning)

• The order of skills follows the early math learning trajectories: Clements & Sarama, Learning and Teaching Early Math. A preschool curriculum built on them raised kids' math in a randomized trial (Clements & Sarama, 2008).
• Counting with meaning: Gelman & Gallistel, The Child's Understanding of Number (1978).
• Counting isn't the same as knowing how many: Wynn (1990, 1992); Sarnecka & Carey (2008).
• Moving along a number path builds number sense: Siegler & Ramani (2008).
• IES practice guide, Teaching Math to Young Children (Frye et al., 2013).

The Floor Plan (area, multiplication, decimals, fractions, factoring)

• Kids only gradually see a rectangle as rows and columns: Battista et al. (1998); Outhred & Mitchelmore (2000).
• Why 7 × 14 comes before 23 × 14: Izsák (2004).
• Most decimal mistakes are whole-number thinking carried over: Resnick et al. (1989).
• Seeing related problems side by side builds understanding: Rittle-Johnson & Star (2007).
• IES practice guide, Developing Effective Fractions Instruction (Siegler et al., 2010).

The Workbench, Recipe Table and Number Trail: sources added as each ladder's page is written.

Reading ladders

Reading should be something kids enjoy. The reading tools borrow from the best of structured literacy, the approach behind Orton-Gillingham and Spalding, without copying any one program. What the research backs most clearly is the shared core: explicit, step-by-step phonics, a clear order, steady review, and lots of practice. A 2021 meta-analysis (Stevens et al.) didn't find an extra boost from Orton-Gillingham-branded programs specifically, so we build on the shared core.

The tools can't hear a kid read, so they never pretend to judge reading aloud. The grown-up is the ear.

Beat by Beat (long words)

• Break a word into syllables, say each the way it's spelled, then blend: Bhattacharya & Ehri (2004).
• Using syllables flexibly works better than memorizing rules: Kearns (2020).
• "Flexing" a word into how it's really said can be taught: Steacy et al. (2019); Dyson et al. (2017).
• Spelling practice helps reading too: Graham & Santangelo (2014).
• Why there are no pictures before the word: pictures pull attention from the print (Samuels, 1967).

Sound Pools, the Phonogram Table and the Rhyme Garden: sources added as each one is done.

Science and history: the Learning Books

One big question each, with real curriculum underneath: the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for science, the C3 Framework for history. Kids find the answer themselves, by collecting clues and testing them. Five levels by depth, not just words. Every fact is checked against a real source, and every book keeps its own list of sources.

Alive (What makes something alive?)

• Young children decide what's alive by whether it moves: Carey (1985) and Opfer & Siegler (2004), as summarized in Babai, Sekal & Stavy (2006).
• Plants are the most-missed living things: more than 40% of 2nd to 4th graders classified plants as not living (Hatano et al., 1993, in Babai et al., 2006).
• The English word "alive" itself pulls kids away from plants, even at age 9: Anggoro, Waxman & Medin (2008), Psychological Science.
• "Is it living?" sorting brings out kids' thinking in K to 2: Keeley, Uncovering Student Ideas in Primary Science (2013).
• Standards: NGSS K-LS1-1, 2-LS2-1, 3-LS1-1, 4-LS1-1, 5-LS1-1 and 5-LS2-1.

Our honest line

No study has tested these exact tools or books. Research sets the order inside each skill. The weave between skills, the pacing, and the choices about what kids see are teaching judgment, and every ladder and book marks which is which. We keep tuning them with real kids.