Personalized learning for your child

Our team of passionate educators, parents, and engineers have unlocked the key to improving reading skills by building the world’s first personalized education app for kids. 

The app combines:

• A dynamic curriculum that adapts to your child’s interests.
• Speech recognition to help kids practice reading aloud.
• A fun and safe virtual environment where kids can interact with each other.
   

Instead of simply gamifying educational material, we’ve built Norby’s World from the ground up with personalization and engagement at its core.

About Norby’s World

Norby’s World is an innovative educational video game.

It incorporates a bright and educational virtual world full of fascinating rooms and colorful characters. Your child navigates the world as a virtual character (Blobble), engaging with personalized content tailored to their interests and reading proficiency.

Exploration, exciting mini-games, and battles are all part of a Blobble’s daily life.

By combining the latest technology with fun adventure games, kids stay focused and motivated – while improving their reading and spelling skills.

A note from a parent and Norby founder 

A few years ago, I started helping my daughter with her schoolwork and noticed that she was very bored and frustrated with much of the conventional learning material. I soon realized this was far from a unique experience.

Studies suggest that, beyond the struggle to stay focused and motivated, one in five kids experience a learning or behavioral challenge that impacts their education.

Part of the problem is the ‘one size fits all’ approach to education. Unfortunately, for many kids, this ‘cookie-cutter’ method of learning simply does not work.

For example, your child brings home a list of words they need to practice this week, and it’s the same list everyone else got. Your child’s eyes glaze over with boredom as you try to teach them the word ‘fastest,’ and it all turns into a pretty miserable experience for both of you.

But what if you think about what your child is interested in first? Cars? Fairies? Fashion? Superheroes? Dinosaurs?

If your child is interested in cars, you may get creative and present them with the following sentence: ‘Lightning McQueen had the fastest lap. Or if they love fairies, you may ask them: ‘Who is the fastest fairy in the Tinker Bell movie?’

This simple shift in context can be the difference between an engaged child vs one who’s bored and checked out.

The best type of learning happens when kids are having fun

“Generally, you want education to be as close as possible to a video game. If you can make it interactive and engaging, then you can make education far more compelling”  – Elon Musk.

As adults, it’s clear that we prefer content tailored to our interests — it’s one of the reasons why platforms like Spotify and Netflix have become so popular. 

From a child’s point of view, this effect is magnified even further. In the early stages of education, it’s vital that kids don’t see “learning” and “fun” as separate things.

Therefore, when we talk about personalized learning, we’re not just talking about adjusting the curriculum. Our personalization engine also caters to children’s varying interests, which is critical in keeping them motivated.

From dinosaurs and superheroes to robots, wizards, and unicorns – whatever your child’s latest obsession is, we’ve got you covered.

Norby’s World is designed to complement your child’s existing school curriculum.

The educational components are designed to support kids in meeting the following learning objectives:

1. Improve reading and comprehension

Becoming a proficient reader is one of the most important skills a child can develop.

Many bright children struggle with subjects like math, science, or social studies, not because they aren’t capable, but because they face difficulties reading and comprehending the material.

The games in Norby’s World are an exceptional way for kids to improve their reading skills in an engaging environment.

2. Improve spelling skills

Research has found that learning the logic and patterns of spelling can improve a child’s reading, writing, and comprehension skills.

Learning to spell helps cement the connection between letters and their sounds, which is why improvements in spelling lead to improvements in reading.

Norby’s World offers a variety of interactive vocabulary games that focus on spelling.

3. Increase vocabulary

A robust vocabulary improves all areas of communication — listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Inside Norby’s World, kids will have numerous opportunities to expand their vocabulary through quests, battles, and mini-games.

4. Achieve oral reading fluency

According to cognitive psychologists, reading aloud with kids is the single most important thing parents and teachers can do in priming children to become good readers. This is because of something known as the “production effect,” which shows that reading words aloud improves our understanding of them and, consequently, our memory.

Norby’s World encourages kids to practice reading aloud, which is a far more effective method to improve reading skills than simply tapping buttons on a screen.

Fun Gameplay

As creators of Norby’s World, we believe that learning shouldn’t feel like a chore. With that in mind, every learning objective is integrated in a way that motivates your child to keep progressing. 

Earn coins and choose from hundreds of outfits

When your child enters Norby’s World, their first task is to create a friendly avatar called a “Blobble” that can be customized to their liking. By earning coins as rewards for engaging in the world, they can select items from our steadily growing inventory.

Battle the bad guys by answering questions

The common phrase “knowledge is power” becomes literal as children battle bad guys by engaging in a series of learning interactions.

The Norby community has played a vital role in the development of Norby’s World. We’ve spent the last year working directly with parents and children to improve the educational experience.

We’ve tested Norby’s World with the help of a significant number of kids, including those:

• Quickly bored with conventional learning material
• Experiencing some form of learning challenge
• Requiring speech therapy
• Learning English as a second language