Cultivating Teddy’s interests

Thomas and his son Teddy live in Indonesia, where few schools focus on academics, and even fewer cultivate their students’ passions. Given the lack of institutional support, Thomas recognizes the importance of empowering Teddy to dive deep into his own interests. As Thomas says, “learning to read is the first step in cultivating Teddy’s interests in academics” so he set out to find a learning tool that could kickstart Teddy’s reading journey.

When Thomas began researching options, he realized most educational tools felt more like “flashy distractions, designed to entertain rather than educate.” He wanted something that would spark Teddy’s interest without becoming addictive, so when he found Mentava during our early beta period, he immediately put his name on our waiting list.

Overcoming reading humps

When Mentava’s beta was released, Thomas jumped at the chance to try it. He noticed an immediate shift: Teddy was suddenly willing to sit down and learn for 20 minutes each day. In the beginning, Thomas saw how Teddy would feel anxious when facing unfamiliar activities. But with Mentava’s repeated reinforcement of early skills, Teddy’s confidence grew, allowing him to tackle challenges head-on.

With Mentava’s guidance, Thomas’s own mindset shifted. “Mentava takes away the burden of me trying to structure the learning,” he explained. “Imagine if I tried to do this on my own. I would have to figure out what phonetics he would need to learn first, how many times to repeat it, how to transition to blending. With Mentava, straight out of the box it works.”

Challenges arose along the way. Teddy struggled with recognizing left-right reading order with “am” vs. “ma”—the biggest hurdle he’d encountered so far. But Thomas remained consistent, exposing Teddy to the pattern daily, and after two weeks, Teddy mastered it. Overcoming this difficulty was a turning point. “After getting through the first major hump of ‘am’ vs. ‘ma,’ I started getting confident that my son was learning, because he was consistently overcoming challenges the app threw at him.”

Thomas likened Mentava’s method to learning the piano. “If you want to play piano, you would learn everything [in order] from notes to scales to chords. Mentava does the same thing for reading, by breaking down each component into approachable baby steps.”

Setting Teddy up for success

Thomas has seen Teddy’s attitude towards learning transform through Mentava. “Now, Teddy meets a challenge and still feels intimidated, but after he learns the material, he feels great! Cheap dopamine through screens isn’t healthy, but if you get the dopamine from putting in effort, then it becomes earned dopamine.”

Today, Teddy is reading well into a 1st-grade level and has begun transitioning to 2nd-grade material. Thomas’s commitment to finding the right learning tools to support Teddy’s growth has set a strong foundation for his son’s lifelong love of learning.

Update: Teddy has graduated from Mentava’s reading program as of February 2025