Charlottetown-based Ooka Island on Wednesday released the mobile application for its game-based reading program.

Kay MacPhee, a literacy researcher, and Jim Barber, a children’s author and teacher, created Ooka Island. Barber wrote 85 levelled eBooks based on MacPhee’s research. They and integrated these books into an online game that is personalized for the child playing to teach him or her  the foundational reading skills at his own pace.

The Ooka Island website recommends that children play Ooka Island three times a week for 30 minutes in order to cap screen time. At that pace, most children finish within a year.

The reading levels of almost half of Canadians between the ages of 16- and 65 fall under the minimum level to function properly at work, according to Statistics Canada. After a year with Ooka Island, a five-year-old can graduate with a grade two reading level.

“We believe in building a reading foundation early,” said Joelle MacPhee, Ooka Island’s Director of Marketing. “[Reading] has nothing to do with intelligence, it has to do with opportunity.”

Fighting Illiteracy Is in her Genes

Originally, Ooka Island was created for classrooms. After appearing on an episode of Dragons’ Den, Ooka Island received many positive responses from parents, and realized that it could help kids not only to read in school, but also at home.

Joelle MacPhee spoke with more than 600 parents across Canada. She discovered that many parents aren’t sure the teachers with 30 kids in classroom can teach their child to read properly, but also don’t know how they can teach their child to read.

Ooka Island sends weekly progress reports to parents about their children’s reading skills to keep them involved in the learning process.

The online version of Ooka Island takes up two gigabytes on a tablet, but the new Ooka Island iOs app won’t take up much space. The Ooka Island app is available for purchase in the App Store. With Ooka Island now available on all devices, as well as in 200 school districts across North America, MacPhee hopes to see many children’s reading levels as possible benefitting from the game.

“It is $99 for the year, for the full 80-hour course,” she said. “But deep down, I still know that’s unreachable for many folks. So I think the solution is the schools.”

With sales to schools and some parents, Ooka Island is revenue positive, but not yet profitable. Joelle MacPhee said that the company hopes to be profitable in the next six month, bringing in more money from app sales.

She said the main focus will now be selling to parents, but Ooka Island will always continue selling to schools to reach more kids.

 “At the end of the day, it does not matter how much money you make or how educated you are,” she said. “You want the best for your child and you want to use everything you possibly can to make sure they have a good education.”