Dear Readers:
Tom Sayer, Ello CEO and Co-Founder here.
First, I'm thrilled to introduce The Letter, a new email series we're kicking off this spring. Every few weeks, we will profile folks from the Ello community — creatives, engineers, teachers, and special guests — who will share their resources and recommendations on work, life, and parenting.
Second, Ello recently celebrated its first year around the sun. And so, in perhaps one of the greatest understatements ever, I’d like to say thank you for supporting us on this journey so far. We promise that everything about the Ello experience — the app, book curation, shipping times et al. — will continue to improve in 2023 and beyond.
Happy reading,
Tom Sayer
CEO & Co-Founder
P.S. We're hiring.
P.P.S. Subscribe to all of Ello’s newsletters here.
Anish Nag
UC Berkeley ML Graduate & Engineer @ Ello
Asking questions, seeking discomfort, and talking to Uber drivers.
1. For Design Inspiration, I Go To: Architectural Digest. This Oregon forest home’s nod to the English countryside is terrific.
2. Tech-Wise, What's Next For Ello: From parent portals to digital-book offerings, Ello is preparing to take a giant leap forward.
3. Most Underrated Author: Anthony Bourdain; his storytelling abilities in Kitchen Confidential are unforgettable.
4. For Better Habits: Track them. A pen, paper, and some introspection goes a long way.
5. Gift You've Given The Most: My attention. Also, this incredible kids reading practice app called Ello. Ever heard?
6. A Must-Watch: Nat Geo's The Rescue on Disney+. The remarkable story of heroic cave divers in their mission to rescue a boy’s soccer team trapped in the flooded caves of Thailand.
7. Favorite Ello Blog Post: How to Set Your Kindergartener Up for Reading Succes
8. Advice For Parents With Kids Interested In STEM: Keep encouraging them to love to learn; planting those seeds now will lead to a fun and exciting future.
9. For a Good Laugh: Try the podcast How Did This Get Made?
Lauren Sittel
Senior Curriculum Specialist @ Ello
The most ridiculously enthusiastic reading specialist around.
1. Favorite Ello Blog Post: The one I wrote about Ello and dyslexia. Early screening and support for dyslexia is a passion of mine.
2. Best Tip For Parents Worried About The Summer Slump: I have three. First, give kids tons of book choices to read. Second, sign up for your local library’s summer reading program. And third, choose a couple of books to read as a family.
3. Under-appreciated App: Insight Timer. It’s a meditation app like Calm or Headspace, but has a larger library of free meditation and is way less pushy about upgrading to a paid subscription.
4. Most Underrated Kids Author: Not too many people are both Caldecott Medal and Newbury Award honorees, but Grace Lin is. We have one of her books in the Ello Library: Ling and Ting Twice As Silly.
5. Advice for Parents: If your child has trouble with reading even though you read to them every day, neither you nor your child have done anything wrong. That quote, “Children become readers on the laps of their parents” is sweet, but it mischaracterizes learning to read as a natural process. Reading aloud to your child is very important for the development of other skills that play into their literacy (like vocabulary and concepts of story), but it is patently untrue that just reading aloud to a child is enough for them to crack the code of written English.
6. Life Hack: A 1:1 solution of white vinegar and water clean mirrors better than Windex.
7. Spring Travel Rec: Ireland. Especially Dublin, Cork, and Galway.
8. I still laugh about... the fact that most of our Engineering team knows the text to The Three Little Pigs by Michelle Dufresne by heart, because they use it so much for testing and demonstrations.
9. Go-to Gift: Children's books! There are 10 kids under 5 in my family, and I give them books for basically every present. I'm just waiting for them to be old enough to give them the gift of Ello.
Ello is growing! We're hiring for full-time positions. Know someone who may be a good fit? We would greatly appreciate any referrals and email forwards.
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