Announcing our strategic partnership with Scholastic
February 22, 2023
Today, SoapBox Labs is delighted to announce a multi-year and multi-product strategic partnership with Scholastic to voice-enable their learning tools and programs for children.
“Partnering with such an iconic and respected brand as Scholastic is incredibly exciting for SoapBox,” says CEO Dr. Martyn Farrows. “Both companies believe in the power of voice to be truly impactful, not only for improving foundational reading skills in the classroom but for creating engaging, fun, and rewarding voice experiences for kids at home.”
Ready4Reading, a new K-3 supplemental phonics system, is the first Scholastic product to be powered by our voice AI. It will launch across US schools and districts this summer as both a print and digital offering.
SoapBox has developed a unique speech engine and shares the same values as Scholastic, including a deep commitment to designing equitable technology that serves all children.
Rose Else-Mitchell, President of Scholastic Education Solutions
Highlighting their commitment to SoapBox and to the future of voice-enabled learning, President of Scholastic Education Solutions, Rose Else-Mitchell said: “We’re eager to unlock the power of voice in early reading instruction with the launch of SoapBox-powered Ready4Reading, and many more programs to come.”
The SoapBox-Scholastic relationship is built on a shared vision of the power of voice for home and classroom learning. Voice-enabled tools allow young students to practice and learn independently while giving educators the reporting and accurate down-to-the-phoneme-level analysis they need to personalize and target their instruction to young students.
Delivering equity in education solutions is another fundamental value shared by both SoapBox and Scholastic, as Rose Else-Mitchell explains: “SoapBox has developed a unique speech engine and shares the same values as Scholastic, including a deep commitment to designing equitable technology that serves all children.”
To date, SoapBox has powered over 80 million learning moments (pieces of individual feedback) for young learners. This number will grow exponentially thanks to Scholastic’s commitment to voice-enabled learning as the next step in the development of their literacy platform.
About SoapBox Labs
Since 2013, SoapBox Labs has been building speech recognition technology that caters to the idiosyncrasies and unique speech patterns of children. In the education space, our award winning voice engine powers preK-12 digital screening, practice, intervention, and assessment tools for literacy, math, language learning, and more.
The SoapBox voice engine is proprietary and has been built from the ground up to power immersive and unbiased digital experiences for children ages 2 to 12 of every accent, dialect, and stage of development. SoapBox is a privacy-first and equity-by-design company. In October 2022, SoapBox became the first AI company to be certified for Prioritizing Racial Equity in AI Design by Digital Promise.
If you’re ready to voice-enable your preK-12 learning tools, Get Started by telling us about your use case today.
