Nanette Swanson has taught for twenty-nine years. This past year, she had twenty-five first graders. Some children arrived with very little English. Some had never been to school; others came from countries where school "looked very, very different."

With that many students, she could not give each child the amount of individual practice they needed to progress quickly. That’s where Happy Letters came in.

Each day, after a whole-group lesson, Swanson divides her class into three groups: one small group working with her, one completing word work or spelling, and one practicing independently in Happy Letters. After fifteen minutes, they rotate.

She introduced Happy Letters once, using a projector to complete a lesson together. After that one introduction, the children could run the station themselves. "With just a few little tips, they were able to do it on their own," she says. "They could be where they were, reading-wise. They didn't have to start at the very basic level - but if they needed that, they had it."

Motivation was not a problem either.

"It wasn't like I had to bribe them to get on," she says. When a rotation ended, students asked her to leave the laptops out in case they had free time later. She was more than happy to say yes: "Any practice is good practice, right?"

Children showed one another their screens and compared where they were in the game: "Oh, I wanna be there!" When a student got stuck, classmates stepped in to help, keeping the Happy Letters station running independently while Mrs. Swanson worked with her reading group.

That enthusiasm was matched by real strides in students’ learning. Happy Letters reinforced the foundational reading skills Mrs. Swanson taught in class, and her students quickly learned letter sounds and began blending words.

All of Mrs. Swanson's students grew, but the results were especially noticeable among newcomers and children with the least prior schooling.

"For those kids, it was amazing, because they made very quick progress between what we did in class and what they were able to do independently with Happy Letters. All of my students saw growth, but those that came in with nothing were able to get the most out of it." 

In the reports, Mrs.Swanson could see that the newcomers were succeeding. More importantly, she saw the difference in the classroom: they were identifying letter sounds with ease and beginning to blend words.

Repetition was key. New sounds and words stick when children hear them often, and Happy Letters gave them that extra practice. 

Because Happy Letters was available with her free Happy Numbers class, Mrs. Swanson could continue using it even when her school could not pay for additional programs.

She now checks time-on-task reports weekly and uses progress data in conversations with newcomers’ families.

For Mrs. Swanson, the value is simple: "Having something that supported exactly what I was teaching in class was the best."

Happy Letters is a K–2 foundational-reading supplement inside Happy Numbers, built on Science of Reading principles and included with a free Happy Numbers class. Students use the same login for both programs. Add it to your class and run it the way Nanette does!