Mim Ingvarson is the founder and CEO of
is technology that improves child literacy. Moxie Reader launched in 2017 and is headquartered in New York, New York. Learn more about Mim and her company by reading our interview below.
Tell us a little about MoxieReader? What inspired you to start the company?
Two thirds of American students are below level in reading by fourth grade and that makes them four times as likely to drop out of high school. MoxieReader is all about inspiring and supporting students to read every day. We are built on research that shows the more you read, the better you read; and that this improved reading is one of the biggest precursors to achievement in all areas of learning.
How is MoxieReader help changing the world?
On the one hand, we have a pretty straightforward goal. We plan to reach as many classrooms and homes as we can to inspire kids to read every day – because if we get just 10% of kids to read just 10 minutes more, the research shows that will impact the learning trajectory of over 1,000,000 kids. We are aware that is no small goal, especially with so many distractions readily available to kids. As no other activity is so impactful and accessible as reading, we understand that technology that promotes and supports reading is now needed. On the other side of the coin, we have some pretty technically sophisticated plans too. For example we see how utilizing machine learning can form the backbone of how we predict and apply the suggestions, prompts, and interventions that can best assist learners. For example, our book review feature will grow into a full, guided, and reflective reading assessment system that helps students from all points on the literacy spectrum.
What are some challenges you’ve faced?
Balancing the needs of teachers and creating a fun social space to inspire kids to read has been an exciting challenge. It is important to create a platform that supports struggling readers as well as the stronger readers. Schools take time to adopt so we plan to create a teacher lead wave that will see bottom up change across our schools.
What’s been your biggest win so far?
I would have to say as a mother seeing my kids use MoxieReader and it support their personal reading growth is really special to me.
How do you define success?
For all the good work undertaken in education the statistics on reading competency in America hasn’t improved over the last decades. To make an impact in increasing students’ volume of reading for example to just 20 minutes a day would see them exposed to 1.8 million words a year and have the potential to change a child’s academic life which we all know would help them to thrive in the long term.
