Founders Say Internet Explosion Means Employees Have to Be Able to Read
Three of the founders of the company that created The Phonics Game to teach children to read are getting ready to market a new board game, PhonOpoly, to the corporate training market.
LearnByGames.com Inc., Corona del Mar, is banking on the explosion of Web-based corporate training,and, in fact, the integration of business and the Internet across the board. The growing importance of the Web, says Myrna Culbreath, one of LearnByGames’ co-founders, means corporations need to make sure their employees can read,and for corporate training purposes, they need to read at fairly high levels.
But nearly 23% of the adult population is illiterate, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Many more adults have reading comprehension at or below the 5th-grade level and can’t read corporate training manuals, typically written at 7th grade to 12th grade levels, Culbreath said.
She came up with the idea for The Phonics Game,which sold $200 million worth,years ago, when she was teaching a continuing education speed-reading course.
She contends that executives who described themselves as lousy spellers, dyslexic, or sleepy when they read were taught the “whole language” method of reading,not phonics. Whole language teaches memorization. Phonics teaches through rules of spelling and sounding things out.
PhonOpoly is actually a series of games that can be played alone or with a group of people. Like in Monopoly, a player can acquire real estate by identifying certain sounds. Players can choose to roll the die or draw a card. Other follow-on games are Vocabulary, Executive Comprehension, Executive Spelling and Hobgoblins,”everything you always wanted to say but were afraid to pronounce.”
Five years ago, Culbreath, along with Sondra Marshak and Dean Wickstrom, co-founded Phonics Game LP. Culbreath two years ago sold the rights to the Phonics Game to A Better Way of Learning, now known as Games2Learn.
(In a unrelated development, Games2Learn, recently filed for Chapter 11 protection.)
LearnByGames is marketing itself as the gateway to all corporate training. LearnByGames will provide services like corporate consulting, offering complimentary pre-testing and analyzing companies’ literacy rates, she said.
LearnByGames has five employees and $6 million in private funding. It is looking for an additional $2 million. Tom Rochefort is interim chief financial officer of the new company, and recruitment of a new CFO and marketing director is under way.
The company is in the early stages of marketing, which consists mainly of Culbreath making the radio and TV talk show rounds doing interviews on “Whole Language vs. Phonics” and “Why Executives Need Phonics.” Culbreath and Marshak also find their way into the media spotlight as co-authors with Star Trek’s William Shatner of his biography “Shatner: Where No Man “. Both were friends of the late Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek’s creator.
About 200 PhonOpoly games have been sold via the Internet and through an 800 number. The game is priced similarly to Hooked On Phonics,not a game,in the $200 to $250 range. About a half-million dollars worth of product is ready to go, Culbreath said.
Manufacturing and fulfillment are outsourced. Aliso Viejo-based ZLand.com handles LearnByGames’ Web site. Further down the road, LearnByGames plans to create electronic versions of the game and distribute it via retail stores. n
GameColony.com Making DealsNewport Beach-based GameColony.com recently landed six deals to supply its gaming content to online gaming, portal and entertainment sites. It offers games of skill like chess and backgammon. Players compete online for prizes.
Beginning in mid-June, GameColony’s content will be part of The BigHub.com, Cases Ladder (part of eUniverse.com), Game-Bay.com and international sites Super11.net, WorldBy-NET.com and Enredese.com.
That’s access to 2 million-plus users, said Leonard Schneyderman, president and chief executive officer of GameColony.
Basically, GameColony swaps its content for access to users.
“I’m essentially driving traffic to my site without having to advertise,” Schneyderman said. Once GameColony increases the number of visitors to its site, GameColony will begin to sell banner ads on its own site.
Schneyderman and his brother Boris quit their “cushy” corporate jobs to start GameColony in January with $625,000 in seed funding.
“It’s an incredible feeling to be an entrepreneur,” Schneyderman said, dismissing any fears of dot-com fallout. The brothers are seeking more funding but want to maintain control of the company, he said.
Boris Schneyderman is a former programmer for Fidelity Investments and an avid chess player who developed chesslab.com, a chess news and analysis database, in his spare time. Chesslab is now an integral part of GameColony.com. Leonard Schneyderman formerly worked for General Electric Capital Corp.
The company employs Russian programmers, who Leonard Schnyederman says are both talented and inexpensive. With a small staff and a relatively small advertising budget, the brothers anticipate a profit in November.
