I love how Ella prompts phonics skills while working with the child to learn to read a word that's difficult. I also like that the stories are interesting and that there's lots of options. I'm a homeschool mom to four kids and I don't always have time to read side by side with my young readers as much as I'd like. This is a great option. But I was sad to see that the app is not just for reading and that it's very gamified. Instead of reading my kids are choosing to watch a lot of videos, they're creating books with Ello, which sounds nice but it's just a means for clicking around in the app rather than reading. Also the rewards for finishing books take up a lot their time. We're a low tech family and I'd rather my kids get bored doing a hard reading lesson with ello after ten or twenty minutes than spend ten minutes actually freaking and another forty "gaming" around on the app. I understand how this might insentivize the child to want to use the app but I actually think it's not helping them to read more it's a distraction from the reading and is simply building an appetite for more screen time, which lets face it the research is clear, screens are just not what are kids need more of/any of. So while I appreciate the concept at its core of ello I feel it went a little off course with some of the side features, and I'm not sure I'll keep using it, which is a bummer.