Letters alive® is the first classroom curriculum based on Augmented Reality (AR) technology. With the goal of teaching children to read, Letters alive is a supplemental reading program with a full year of curriculum aligned to Common Core State Standards. It allows students to interact with a kingdom of 26 entertaining, intelligent animals — each representing a letter in the alphabet — who virtually come alive in the hands of students.

This groundbreaking supplemental curriculum is not only designed for pre-k and kindergarten classrooms, but it also targets specialized instruction within grades 1 – 5 for ESL students, RTI students and Special Needs students. Letters alive applies research-based, best practices of phonics curriculum, but in a way that has never been so engaging or so interactive for early learners.

Pioneered by Logical Choice Technologies, the curriculum uses the same mind-blowing, computer-generated AR technology implemented by the Imagineers at Walt Disney World. Accompanied by 94 sight word cards, the Letters alive creatures not only move and make sounds, but they are quite intelligent (a.i.) as well. These animals not only possess the capacity to respond to students’ actions, but they also have the astounding ability to answer their questions. The amazing interactive 3-D technology does not require special glasses or 3-D projection equipment.

When the Letters alive cards are arranged to ask, “Can the frog swim?,” a projected image of Frankie Frog actually begins swimming. Next, have a child try “The frog can fly.” Then, Frankie will shake his head “No.” By seeing the words in action, learning and retention becomes faster and stronger. As students encounter 3-dimensional characters like Gerdy Giraffe, Henry Horse or Frankie Frog, and see them respond to actions and questions, the students more quickly establish strong connections between the letters and the animals they represent. This includes understanding how letters sound phonetically and how they are used to form words. In addition, the students can easily learn the meanings of sight words (Dolch words) and see how those words are used in sentences.

In Letters alive, Logical Choice provides a full school year of lesson plans that are aligned directly to the Common Core State Standards currently being adopted in 48 states. Augmented reality applications for educational purposes, like those being advanced by Logical Choice Technologies, hold the promise of immersing students in experiential learning environments—even at levels beyond early elementary—that were quite unimaginable until now.