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Holding Word Tag to the HIGHEST STANDARD
Most academic studies would celebrate a 25–30% gain as a meaningful success. But at Word Tag, we believe families deserve more. That’s why we hold ourselves to the highest benchmark in the research.
Our Guarantee
If your child does not achieve at least 30% improvement in reading performance after three months of play, we will refund your subscription — provided they played on at least 80% of the recommended days ( 72 out of 90 ) and completed 80% of the daily missions. This threshold is not arbitrary: it reflects the level of progress academics describe as transformative, the kind that changes a child’s reading trajectory.
How much reading is enough?
Educators and researchers have studied children’s reading growth for decades, and the evidence is clear: progress happens in steps, not leaps. Academic research gives us helpful benchmarks to understand what “real progress” looks like:
10–20% improvement
Small but real gains.
This shows that a child is learning, but academics caution it may not be enough to change long-term outcomes. As one review put it, “even the most effective, well-implemented interventions rarely boost achievement by more than 0.15 standard deviations” — roughly a 10–20% gain (Brookings Institution, 2023).
20–30% improvement
Educationally meaningful gains.
At this level, progress is noticeable and significant. Children are building fluency, confidence, and comprehension. Researchers describe gains in this range as “moderate to strong,” with real impact on achievement and classroom performance.
30–40% improvement
Very strong, transformative gains.
These are rare in research but highly prized. They signal that a child has made a robust leap in mastery — often the kind of progress associated with one-on-one tutoring or the best adaptive learning systems. Education expert John Hattie, whose Visible Learning project synthesizes over 1,400 meta-analyses, notes that effect sizes above 0.40 are considered the “hinge point” for interventions that truly accelerate learning.
