Can you read this? Then you are one of the lucky ones.
Our Mission: Literacy as a Human Right
Sometimes it feels like organizations, politicians, and educators are just sounding the gong on the literacy issue for no reason. As an average citizen who can read, it often seems impossible that there are real people in the United States who cannot read.
Whether it seems impossible, improbable, or unimportant, the crisis is real and affects thousands of students every year.
In 2024, about 40% of students did not read at a proficient level, and the number of students who can read at a normal level has been going down steadily for the last ten years.
In 2025, the reading levels of high school students fell to their lowest since 1992, and the gap between the lowest and highest achieving students widened.
This crisis is not just a headline or clickbait. It is real, and it is affecting you, your neighbors, your kids, or your friends.
Why, you may ask, is there such a widening gap? We have a whole blog post talking about 5 possible reasons why illiteracy rates in the United States are rising. You can read that blog post here: 5 Reasons Why U.S. Illiteracy Rates are Rising That No One Reads About
Mission Lumen believes that education shouldn’t have a cover charge. Students everywhere should have access to education, but not just any education, education that is quality and actually works for students.
We combine free access with the benefits of gamified learning to create an environment where kids aren’t just learning how to read but are building the confidence they need to succeed in a digital-first world.
As most people know, AI entered the scene several years back and has been growing in popularity ever since. Although tools like AI started free to get people hooked, today the best AI tools require subscriptions to use, making them inaccessible to those who cannot afford them.
Beyond the Screen: Why “Free” is Just the Beginning
Mission Lumen is different. As a nonprofit, we are donor and crowd funded to keep our top-tier tech accessible to all. We remove that barrier to learning, simply by making it free.
We have also worked hard to keep our platform refined for all sorts of environments, from busy school computers to older devices with low-bandwidth availability. We understand that our users may be coming from anywhere and want to support their learning every way possible.
The Science of the “Level Up”: Gamification with Purpose
As discussed in our previous blog post: Why Learning Should Be Gamified, learning through games transform the idea of a “wrong answer” and a source of shame, into “points of data” and a source of growth. Videogames essentially reduce a student’s fear of failure.
When students play games, it also activates a different part of their brain, giving spikes of dopamine and keeping students engaged- even while they are learning!
If you’ve ever watched a teenager light up when they finally “get” a game mechanic, you understand the promise. Games teach players to decode systems, interpret cues, track goals, and learn from feedback.
Mission Lumen uses streaks, badges, and the idea of “unlocking” levels to keep students engaged with phonics and vocabulary long after they would have put down the traditional textbook.
In a game, there is no such thing as “failure,” there is only “not yet,” keeping students from getting discouraged.
This is especially important with students who are already struggling with the material. Discouragement prevents student engagement, while healthy competition and interesting story mechanics make learning fun, fostering a genuine love for learning.
Evidence of Impact: Measuring Student Progress
Although Mission Lumen has only been officially up and running for about a year now, already we are seeing thousands of testimonies from schools, parents, and students.
As our Chief Creative Director mentioned in a press release last week, “Students using our gamified modules show a 150% increase in engagement compared to traditional drills.”
Not only has student engagement increased, but overextended teachers are feeling supported in their classrooms. One teacher emailed us explaining how she saw our program acting as a “force multiplier” for her classroom of 30+ students with varying abilities, making her lessons more potent and applicable to each students needs.
Apart from the testimonies we receive daily, our own software has shown us the progress students are making across the United States.
One area that we have been tracking since the launch date was the amount of time it would take students to understand a series of difficult words using the phonics techniques taught within the gameplay.
At the beginning, students were especially struggling in this area, taking 3x as long as predicted to finish the activities. Today, those same students are powering through the activities and have advanced an average of 4 reading levels in just a few months!
As we track student achievement on the backend, parents and teachers are able to easily understand the student’s growth through our dashboard. Unlike the code we read on a regular basis, the dashboard translates this complex data into stats and even provides teachers with actionable “next steps” for a student to keep them learning outside of the virtual classroom.
Stories from the Field: The Human Connection
Like I said before, the Mission Lumen team receives hundreds of testimonies every week. Many of them are from teachers, sharing how Mission Lumen is helping them teach their students in a new and applicable way.
Anne, a 5th grade teacher from Minesota said “My students are excelling like never before. Mission Lumen makes it so easy for teachers to get involved and help their students in a fun and engaging way.”
Some testimonies are from parents, telling us how much of a positive change they see in their student, and the confidence they have gained in their reading abilities since starting our program.
Trinity Paige, a mom from Texas, said “Mission Lumens work is fantastic. I saw my son rise 3 reading levels in 2 months!”
Although these types of testimonies are fantastic (we love positive feedback!), our favorites are from the students themselves.
Toby Fox, an 11th grade student from Florida, said “I’m 17 and the fast typing is fun and helps me learn how to spell better than I was before, at the same time it feels like I am saving the world.”
Looking Ahead
As fantastic as this last year has been, we are nowhere near being done!
Our goal is to see thousands more students enrolled in our free program, hundreds more schools using our application, and the lasting ripple effect on better lives, opportunities, and social participation for the students we are helping!
All that being said, we cannot have done this without our amazing community of teachers, students, supportive parents, and generous donors. While the technology we create is powerful, its truly the real-life community support that has created such an impact and (just as importantly) kept the platform free.
Together, we can create a world where every child can win at reading. We aren’t just building games; we are building the foundation for a lifetime of learning.
Join us in our mission by becoming a donor, visit our Pledge Page to help fund the fight against illiteracy!
Want to know more? Click Here to read our other blog posts.
Questions? Our FAQ Page is up and running!