For many students who struggle to read, intervention time can feel isolating. They know they’re being pulled for extra help, and the work often feels different from what their peers are doing. Poppins was designed to change that.
Poppins doesn’t look or sound like an intervention solution, it feels like a real video game. Students create their own avatars, move through levels, and unlock new challenges as they build skills. They play along with current pop songs from artists they recognize, thanks to partnerships with companies like Sony and Disney.
The result? Students are eager to log in. They don’t feel like they’re doing drills, they feel like they’re winning.
Behind the fun, every moment of gameplay is grounded in decades of neuroscience. Each rhythm sequence, timing cue, and auditory challenge targets the brain systems that support fluent reading: attention, timing, and sound processing.
But something else happens, too—students start to feel capable again.
As they level up, their sense of confidence grows right alongside their reading ability. The design encourages mastery, not perfection. Every success builds both neural pathways and self-belief.
The science is clear, consistency rewires the brain. But consistency only happens when students want to come back.
That’s why Poppins feels like play first and invention second. Students are drawn in by the familiar beats and bright visuals, then stay because they can feel themselves getting better through faster reactions, sharper focus, smoother reading.
It’s the difference between a task and an experience. Between “extra help” and “I can do this.”
Every rhythm exercise in Poppins serves two purposes:
That shift, from frustration to confidence, is what sustains meaningful progress. When students feel proud of how they’re learning, they keep showing up. And when they keep showing up, the brain does what it’s built to do: grow stronger with every beat.
The goal isn’t just fluent reading, it’s helping students feel capable and confident every step of the way.