About Us
“We understand human behavior, cognitive science, motivational psychology, and language acquisition better than ever. It’s time to use that knowledge to give our children useful skills — not just to entertain them.”
Our Strategic Vision
Word Playground is building a complete ecosystem of curiosity-driven content that meets children at every stage of their early development. The decoding series is its foundation — and the roadmap ahead is already being written.
Decoding Series
Hosted by Alphabetty
In Post-Production
Focuses on the mechanics of lifting words off the page through phonics, phonemic awareness, pattern recognition, and letter formation. It gets children to read.
Comprehension Series
In Development
Deepens the foundation of the Decoding Series. Alphabetty joins children inside nonfiction texts, asking questions, making mistakes, and letting the child become the teacher — building background knowledge, tier 1, 2, and 3 vocabulary, and genuine understanding of the world.
Decoding Series: Toddler Edit
In Development
Presents phonics and decoding in a way more appropriate for our youngest viewers: slower, fewer cuts, more time for processing, more repetition, and essential basic vocabulary appropriate for their stage of development.
Number Series
In Development
Introduces mathematics the way Word Playground introduces reading — not through rote instruction but through curiosity, rhythm, and relationship. Children learn not just to count but to understand why math exists and how its operations connect to one another. True to the Word Playground Method, abstract concepts are felt first through music, play, and story. For example, a child sings numbers in different time signatures as a prerequisite to skip counting. The pattern is recognized and explored — not just memorized.
Together these series form a unified learning ecosystem grounded in a single belief: that children who understand the world around them — its words, its stories, its numbers, and its patterns — become readers, thinkers, and discoverers for life.”
Meet Our Founder
JESS SANDLIN, BS
Founder, Executive Director
While throughout the last two decades, Jess has pursued a diverse career spanning preschool and private education, ESL and Italian instruction, and building science based curriculum for parent education at WIC, her passion and charisma shine brightest in her aptitude for playful teaching methods. Utilizing games, activities, and songs that teach decoding and background knowledge, she successfully has had many children reading at a kindergarten level before the age of 4-an approach she now extends to digital platforms. With a background in acting, singing, songwriting, curriculum development, early education, and the science of reading, she serves as the creative driving force behind Word Playground.
Our Board of Directors
A. RENEE LEE, M.ED
JESSICA CHEVRIER, MS,
LMFT-Associate