While Lit Ladder is in beta, everything is free - every course, all premium test prep, and all Plus features. Accounts created during the beta are Founding Families: when the beta ends you get 30 more days of free access, plus one extra day for every day you sent valuable feedback during the beta. In return we ask one thing - use the 💬 Feedback button whenever something is broken, confusing, or missing.
Decoding is the foundation, not the ceiling. Word-level work - sounds, spelling patterns, prefixes and suffixes - is generated from stated rules of English and practiced until it is automatic. On top of that sit hand-written passages with questions about main idea, inference, structure and evidence, many of them about real science and history, so a child is learning something while they read. The Challenge Rung serves hard-band stretch questions on material you've mastered, and when a misconception appears, live AI tutoring works through it with you. And because mastery should be verifiable outside our walls, a proctored final exam is built in - don't take our quizzes' word for it.
Life happens - camps, travel, sick weeks. When you come back from a break to a pile of overdue reviews, the ladder keeps today's most urgent handful and spreads the rest over the coming days. A ramp, not a wall. Nothing is dropped, streak freezes protect scheduled rest days, and weekends carry a lighter goal by design.
Yes - the Lesson Library opens every lesson in the course for reading, no prerequisites, no gates. Curiosity never needs permission. Mastery credit still comes from doing the work at the right moment on the ladder.
Completely. Focus mode (Settings) hides leagues, rewards, quests, and the daily challenge, leaving just the goal ring, the next lesson, and reviews. Rungs still count identically - they measure work completed (about a minute of focused effort each), and per our fairness charter they are never taken away.
Every learning course is free: elementary through university, the skill tracks - phonics foundations, reading comprehension, vocabulary, grammar and writing - and the reading-across-subjects tracks in science and social studies. There are no per-course unlocks: a family that needs phonics this year and inference next year should not be asked to buy twice, and the optional Lit Ladder Plus subscription ($12.99/month) unlocks every premium course. A Family plan ($149.99/year) covers your whole household, each child with their own login.
Annual bills once for 12 months at about 36% off the monthly rate ($99.99/year). Upgrading mid-cycle switches you to annual immediately with a fresh 12-month term. Every new account also starts with a 7-day free trial of the whole portal.
You can pause for up to three months from Settings → Subscription. Charges stop, your pricing is preserved, and you can resume any time. Learning content stays available while paused - only subscription features sleep.
Settings → Subscription → Cancel, effective immediately for future charges. One-time test-prep unlocks are yours forever and are not affected by canceling the subscription.
Subscriptions - satisfaction guarantee: cancel any
time from Settings. Not happy? Monthly plans get the current month's
charge back; annual and Family plans are refunded pro-rated for the
unused months. Refunds go to the original payment method within 5-10
business days.
One-time course unlocks: full refund within 14 days if the
unlocked course has under 60 minutes of activity - write to support.
Web payments run through Stripe - use the "manage billing" link in Settings → Subscription (available once live payments are enabled).
The adaptive diagnostic bisects the knowledge graph: each answer places whole regions of prerequisite topics, so it usually takes about 15 questions, and continues up to 40 only when a strong run has not yet found your ceiling. You can retake it any time from Settings - retakes only add to your profile.
75%+ on a topic's practice, then retained through spaced reviews on an expanding schedule. See Understanding Rungs for how effort and mastery are measured separately.
No - the reading stage is an estimate from your timed mock performance on typical historical curves. They're built to be honest practice signals, not guarantees.
Yes - Settings → Accommodations extends every timed mock by 25% to 200%, mirroring common testing accommodations.
View only: progress reports and activity logs. Full control: also manage goals, accommodations, subscription, purchases, and the knowledge profile. Add supervisors in Settings.
Yes - Settings → Documentation emails the transcript, progress report, or a date-ranged activity log to any recipients (To + BCC), optionally with the course overview, full course contents, a methodology letter, and certificates of completion.
Lit Ladder is designed by its founder - a PhD and Full Professor of Computer Engineering and an internationally recognized researcher with 25 years of university-level teaching experience. It is a product of Driftwood Labs. The pedagogy - mastery learning on a prerequisite knowledge graph with spaced repetition - reflects how a demanding subject is actually taught and assessed at the university level: nothing is assumed, every step has to be earned, and the record has to survive somebody else checking it.
Lit Ladder is a supplemental mastery-learning system, not an accredited school. The methodology letter included with documentation explains exactly how mastery is verified so schools can evaluate the record on its merits.