We aspire to be the leading force in improving literacy by transforming how children learn to read at their pace and preference. By uniting the best of traditional and digital learning, we make a child’s reading journey more accessible, playful, and effective for every family.
Kibeam is the brainchild of entrepreneur Jim Marggraff, inventor of the LeapFrog LeapPad, an extraordinarily popular and effective learning tool for children aged 3 to 7. Building on that success, a team of creators, writers, engineers, designers, teachers and education experts from LeapFrog and beyond have come together to author the next chapter in edtech for home and school, the Kibeam Wand Reading System.
Our understanding of how kids learn to read is based on decades of combined research in neuroscience, psychology and education. We know that teaching phonics helps kids decode words, while building vocabulary and comprehension skills helps them understand what they’re reading. We’ve also seen how beneficial it is for kids when parents read with them. The Kibeam Wand uses proven methods and techniques to turn early learners into avid readers.
There are three ways we learn and grow: instruction, experience and play. Play is best for developing and honing abilities like curiosity, resilience, imagination and creativity. When children play they develop empathy, emotional intelligence and executive functioning skills. And play-based learning accelerates and deepens the understanding of all subjects like math, science and history…and most importantly reading and literacy. With the Kibeam Wand, sometimes kids will sit still and focus on reading and exploring the words and pictures, and other times they will move their hands, arms and whole body to play games and activities that will spark their imaginations and advance their literacy knowledge.
The Kibeam Wand puts the power of reading in kids’ hands. It features multi-colored orbs that light up as the child interacts, two simple buttons and a smiling beam of light that recognizes words and pictures on the page. The wand is just as smart on the inside, with motion sensors and AI that make it a valuable reading assessment tool for parents and educators by analyzing how and what the child is learning while using the wand. The more we all learn how kids learn, the better we can enhance their reading development.
