Attendance Recovery
Built For California
American Digital Education delivers complete, interactive K-12 instruction across five core subjects, built natively to state-level standards. Each lesson behaves like your best teacher. It teaches in small steps, checks for understanding often, makes students explain their thinking out loud, and the moment a student is confused, it stops and reteaches right there. That's decades of learning science engineered into every K-12 lesson. The platform arrives complete, with every tool administrators, teachers, and students need in one system.
Two Classrooms. One Week. 65+ Hours of Reteaching.
A slice of data from American Digital Education looked at two classrooms. In a single week, those students needed more than 65 hours of content retaught, one wrong answer at a time. Two teachers do not have that time. The lessons do it for them, in the moment, for every student.
394 Reteaching Moments
One classroom. Five days. 1,144 multiple choice questions answered.
394 times, a student who got something wrong was immediately retaught the concept, right then, before moving on.
The math no teacher can beat: at five minutes each, 394 reteaching moments is roughly 32 hours. That is nearly every instructional minute in the week, with nothing left for anything else.
One person cannot personally reteach every wrong answer for every student. The platform can. Every incorrect answer gets its own reteaching moment, in context, the instant it happens. Now multiply that across every room, every day.
One classroom, five school days
Students Explain Their Thinking Out Loud
One classroom. Five days. 436 verbal responses.
Students did not just click an answer. They read the sentence frame, said it out loud, and justified their thinking. 77% were correct.
Correct answers are not by accident. Every question is built on research into depth-of-knowledge questioning, academic vocabulary, and higher-order thinking. Getting it right 77% of the time is a strong, direct signal that students are learning the material, not just recognizing it.
And the 23% who missed? Every one of those students got the reteaching they needed, in that moment.
One classroom, five school days
Gaps Compound Until Exam Day Exposes Them All at Once
Students who do not have a solution that meets them where they struggle fall behind. Falling behind correlates directly with lower scores. Chronic absenteeism makes it worse.
That is one in five students nationwide missing 10% or more of the school year, about 18 days.
Most absent students get worksheet packets and textbook assignments. In many districts, they receive credit for completing half the work.
Packets do not replace tier-1 classroom instruction. These students fall behind, then struggle with new material the moment they return.
Something a Teacher Can Assign That Replaces the Instruction Missed
That is why we built dedicated features for attendance recovery, short-term independent study, and long-term independent study. In a few clicks, a teacher assigns lessons built on more than 80 brain-researched methodologies.
Every lesson also identifies each student's knowledge gaps and tells the teacher exactly which lessons will close them.
Attendance Recovery
Assign the lessons a student missed. They receive full instruction, not a packet, and return ready for what comes next.
Short-Term Independent Study
Keep students on pace during planned absences with the same standards-aligned, checked-for-understanding lessons their classmates receive.
Long-Term Independent Study
Deliver complete, compliant instruction across five core subjects for students learning outside the classroom for an extended period.
Parent satisfaction improves when parents see their kids learning grade-level material without falling into gaps. Getting there means helping teachers do more with less. Cost-effective, research-backed technology that augments teachers, and is proven to help students learn more and catch up, is how that happens. American Digital Education was built exactly for this.
Get A Demo →How Much ADA Funding Is Your District Leaving on the Table?
Every absence lowers your average daily attendance, and your funding with it. California districts can earn that ADA back through three programs: Attendance Recovery, short-term independent study, and long-term independent study. Enter your numbers to see what they are worth together.
Recovers up to 10 days of ADA per student from unplanned absences.
Recovers ADA from planned absences of up to 15 days.
Recovers ADA from planned absences of 16 days or more. Capped at 21 days in this estimate.
Defaults to $75. Your business office can provide your district's exact daily rate.
Adjust days recovered per student
Defaults are the maximum days for each program. Enter your average days per student for a closer estimate.
Estimated total across all three programs.
Estimate multiplies the students in each program by the days recovered per student and your ADA funding per day. Attendance Recovery credit is limited to 10 days per student per school year. Short-term independent study covers planned absences of up to 15 days, and long-term independent study covers 16 days or more, capped at 21 days here to keep the estimate conservative. Actual revenue depends on program participation, compliance, and funded-ADA protections.
1000's of Lessons
We do not just prompt an LLM to create a lesson. ADE's curriculum generation pipeline is a multi-stage, multi-model architecture. First, an advanced LLM generates lesson content from 65 deterministic parameters; covering pedagogy, 80 brain-researched teaching methodologies, and state standards alignment. That output is then passed to a higher-capability model operating as an LLM-as-a-Judge, which evaluates the content against our quality rubric and feeds structured feedback upstream to automatically tune the generation parameters. The refined output then enters a third stage; an even more capable model running Automated Prompt Optimization, which iteratively improves the upstream prompts themselves to maximize output quality at scale. After all three AI stages, every lesson is reviewed word-by-word by credentialed education professionals for coherence, academic rigor, logical sequencing, and adherence to state-specific standards.
Mathematics
From foundational arithmetic to advanced algebra, our step-by-step lessons break down complex concepts into digestible segments that build genuine mathematical understanding. Every math lesson incorporates real-world word problems, error analysis questions, and formats that mirror Common Core assessment structures.
Science
Visual demonstrations make physics, chemistry, biology, and earth science accessible through engaging content that sparks curiosity and scientific reasoning. Instructional images appear during worked examples and practice problems, exactly when cognitive science research shows visual information supports schema construction.
Technology
Age-appropriate computer science, engineering, coding, digital literacy, and computational thinking lessons that prepare students for tomorrow's workforce while fostering creativity and logical problem-solving skills.
English Language Arts
Comprehensive reading, writing, and grammar instruction that develops critical thinking skills while supporting diverse learners. Voice recognition lets students read objectives aloud with instant feedback. Sentence frames scaffold responses, reducing cognitive load while maintaining rigorous expectations.
Social Studies
Interactive lessons covering history, geography, civics, economics, and cultural studies that help students understand their world while developing critical analysis and global citizenship skills.
Master Every Subject
Learning becomes effortless when instruction is clear, engaging, and accessible.
Our standards-aligned lessons break down complex concepts into manageable steps, allowing students to progress at their own pace while building genuine understanding. From struggling learners to advanced students, everyone can achieve subject mastery with the right instructional approach.
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The Science Behind Every Lesson
Most edtech platforms claim to be "research-based." We publish the research. Every design decision, from lesson structure to font choice to image placement, is grounded in specific, peer-reviewed findings.
Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI)
Our lesson framework follows the EDI methodology validated by Hollingsworth & Ybarra (2009) and Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction (2012). Every lesson moves through a deliberate sequence: clear learning objectives, activation of prior knowledge, concept development with examples and non-examples, guided practice with scaffolding, and independent application.
Cognitive Load Theory
Developed by John Sweller, Cognitive Load Theory establishes that working memory is severely limited. Our lessons are engineered to minimize extraneous cognitive load and maximize germane cognitive load. New information is chunked into manageable pieces, sentence frames reduce the cognitive burden of response formulation, and visual and auditory channels work together without overwhelming either one (Sweller, van Merriënboer, & Paas, 2019).
Multimedia Learning Theory
Richard Mayer's Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning established twelve evidence-based principles for combining words and pictures. Our platform applies these directly: the Coherence Principle (no decorative images), the Signaling Principle (word-by-word highlighting synchronized with narration), the Segmenting Principle (learner-paced phases), and the Pre-Training Principle (verbal definitions before visual worked examples).
Formative Assessment & Retrieval Practice
Research by Roediger & Butler (2011) demonstrated that retrieval practice is one of the most powerful learning strategies. Our lessons embed 27-29 formative assessment questions spanning all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy: 13-15 verbal response questions and 12-15 multiple-choice questions. No duplicate assessment patterns. Each question tests a fundamentally different aspect of understanding. Immediate corrective feedback prevents misconceptions from solidifying (Black & Wiliam, 1998).
Research-Driven Interface Design
Even the pixels on screen are research-validated. Typography uses Inter optimized for screen legibility (Moret-Tatay & Perea, 2011), sized at 16-18px body text per WCAG guidelines, with 1.5 line height (Chaparro et al., 2004). Color-coded lesson components leverage schema activation. Word-by-word yellow highlighting applies Mayer's signaling principle with the fastest-detection highlight color (Wogalter et al., 2002).
Features Built on Science
Thousands of Standards-Aligned Lessons
Interactive, AI-powered lessons across Mathematics, Science, Technology, English Language Arts, and Social Studies, all explicitly mapped to Common Core and state standards. Every lesson follows the complete EDI instructional sequence with built-in formative assessment, vocabulary development, and real-world application. Question formats mirror standardized test structures so students build test-taking fluency naturally through daily instruction.
Learn By Doing
True learning happens through active engagement, not passive watching.
Our interactive lessons incorporate AI with hands-on activities, real-world applications, and immediate feedback that keep students engaged and involved.
Multimodal engagement: Lessons engage auditory learning through AI narration, visual learning through synchronized word-by-word highlighting and instructional images, kinesthetic learning through clicking, tapping, and voice recording, and reading/writing through read-aloud activities with real-time transcription.
Active participation required: Students can't advance without responding. Varied question types prevent predictability. Real-world applications demonstrate relevance. Immediate feedback creates a sense of progression.
"I Don't Understand" Reteaching on Demand
When students struggle, they shouldn't have to formulate a perfect question to get help. Our "I Don't Understand" button pauses the lesson at the exact point of confusion and delivers an AI-generated, age-appropriate explanation grounded in the specific lesson context.
Students can: Request deeper explanations with "Tell Me More," ask follow-up questions with voice recording, or continue from exactly where they left off.
Safety guardrails: The system never provides direct answers to assessment questions. It teaches the underlying concepts instead. All content stays strictly within the current lesson and is filtered for age-appropriateness.
Sound It Out, Automatically
When a student stumbles on a hard word, whether they mispronounced it reading aloud or it is a key vocabulary term, the lesson breaks that word into bite-sized pieces the student can see and tap to hear. The breakdown adapts automatically to the student's grade level, and it appears both in the live read-aloud coaching moment and in the vocabulary panel. There is nothing for the teacher to set up.
Grades K-3: Sounds First
Early readers are still learning to turn letters into sounds. They see the word spelled the way it sounds, in plain, friendly chunks, with no color-coding to distract from the one job at this age: connecting sound to print. Tap any chunk to hear just that sound, or tap the whole word to hear it said naturally.
Grades 4-12: Structure First
Older students decode fluently, so the focus shifts to understanding word structure. They see the true spelling split into syllables and color-coded by word part, so the prefix, root, and suffix become visible every time a hard word appears. Recognizing that -tion turns an action into a thing unlocks hundreds of academic words.
prefix · root · suffix
Every Lesson in English and Spanish
More than 1.1 million California students are classified as English Language Learners, and most speak Spanish at home. They receive the same standards-aligned EDI lessons as their peers, fully translated on screen and narrated in natural Spanish audio. Same standards. Same depth. Different language.
Same Standards, Same Depth
Spanish-mode lessons teach the same content standards, follow the same 65-step EDI structure, and assess with the same rigor. Students are never placed on a lower academic track simply because they need instruction in their home language.
Natural Spanish Narration
Two dedicated Spanish instructors, Mrs. Hernandez and Mr. López, guide students through every lesson using the same high-fidelity audio pipeline as English. Students pick their preferred voice, and it carries across all their lessons.
Bilingual Academic Vocabulary
Key academic terms appear in both languages on first use, so students build the English vocabulary they will meet on CAASPP while mastering the concept in the language they understand best.
Teacher-Controlled Delivery
Set a student's default language once, or apply a per-assignment Language Override to deliver a specific lesson in English or Spanish. It works across every pathway, including Attendance Recovery and Independent Study.
Strategic Image Placement Based on Cognitive Science
Where other platforms scatter decorative images across every screen, we follow four decades of research on how visuals affect learning. Mayer's Coherence Principle warns that seductive details reliably harm learning outcomes (Rey, 2012; Harp & Mayer, 1998). Our approach: instructional images appear exclusively during worked examples and practice problems. They are absent during definitions, comprehension checks, and closure. This isn't minimalism for aesthetics. It's minimalism engineered by cognitive science.
Assessment That Reveals Real Understanding
Every lesson includes 27-29 formative assessment questions: 13-15 verbal response questions and 13-15 multiple-choice questions spanning all six levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.
No duplicate assessment patterns: Each question tests a fundamentally different aspect of understanding: identification, application, error analysis, transfer, creation, and metacognitive reflection.
Immediate feedback: Students receive instant corrective feedback that prevents misconceptions from solidifying. Incorrect answers trigger reteaching of the specific concept.
Content-assessment alignment: We never assess what we haven't taught. Every question tests content explicitly covered in the lesson and aligns to the stated learning objective.
Test preparation built in: Students see example Common Core test questions at lesson completion, reducing test anxiety through natural familiarity.
Knowledge Gaps
This student is struggling. What exactly is missing, and which lesson fixes it?
Every lesson on the platform includes embedded check-for-understanding questions, and every course includes formative assessments. Knowledge Gaps reads the results of that work and answers the question every teacher asks.
Instead of a generic report that says a student is "below grade level," Knowledge Gaps identifies the specific academic standard the student has not yet mastered, traces it back to the foundational skill that is actually breaking down (even when that skill comes from an earlier grade), and recommends the exact lesson that teaches it. The teacher reviews the recommendation and assigns the lesson with one click.
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For Teachers, Administrators, Students, and Parents
For Teachers & Staff
Complete, research-based lessons requiring no additional preparation. Real-time analytics show student completion, assessment performance, and areas of struggle. The "I Don't Understand" dashboard reveals which concepts trigger the most help requests.
For Administrators
Every lesson addresses Common Core State Standards with documentation for curriculum audits, accreditation reviews, and board presentations. Scales from individual accounts to district-wide with administrative oversight. Full FERPA-compliant audit trails.
For Students
Active participation required. Choose your virtual instructor and customize playback speed. View progress, completed lessons, and performance at a glance. Voice recognition provides instant feedback. Click bolded vocabulary for audio definitions.
For Parents
Your child learns through topics they already love while mastering rigorous standards. Works on smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. Wherever there's an internet connection, there's access to research-backed instruction.
Learn Anywhere, Anytime
Quality education shouldn't be limited by location or device.
Our cloud-based platform works on smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers. From the classroom to the kitchen table, from the school library to the bus ride home, learning continues seamlessly across all environments and devices.
What Makes This Different
Our lessons provide complete instructional experiences with systematic, scaffolded instruction following the full EDI methodology.
Content is purpose-built for interactive digital delivery with assessment at strategic intervals, adaptive response, intentional cognitive load management, and word-level highlighting.
Research shows extraneous animations can harm learning (Mayer's Coherence Principle). Our engagement comes from the satisfaction of mastering challenging content.
Every lesson is explicitly aligned to standards, designed by pedagogy experts, validated against research, structured to follow EDI sequences, and quality-controlled. AI features teach concepts, never give away answers.
Even the Interface Is Research-Driven
The science doesn't stop at lesson content. Every pixel on screen is backed by published research.
Typography
Inter typeface optimized for screen legibility (Moret-Tatay & Perea, 2011), 16-18px body text per WCAG, 1.5 line height for minimal line-skipping errors (Chaparro et al., 2004). OpenDyslexic font option available.
Color System
Warm background tones reduce eye fatigue (Berman et al., 1991). Color-coded components (blue for objectives, yellow for definitions, green for examples, red for non-examples) leverage schema activation (Anderson, 1984).
Visual Attention
Word-by-word yellow highlighting applies Mayer's Signaling Principle with the fastest-detection color (Wogalter et al., 2002). Green "Continue" and orange "Submit" buttons prevent action slips (Norman, 2013).
Image Placement
Instructional images appear only during worked examples and practice. No decorative images anywhere. Interesting but irrelevant visuals reliably harm learning (Rey, 2012; Harp & Mayer, 1998).
Accessibility and Compliance
Implementation Flexibility
Use as core curriculum for systematic skill building across the academic year.
Target specific standards where students demonstrate gaps, providing focused remediation.
Allow advanced students to work ahead independently while teachers support struggling learners.
Students complete initial instruction at home, reserving class time for application and discussion.
Provide structured makeup instruction for students who missed content or need to repeat courses.
Target specific standards likely to appear on upcoming standardized tests.
Leadership
Derek Abbring
Chief Executive Officer57 consecutive weeks of direct K-12 research sessions engaging thousands of teachers, principals, and superintendents nationwide. Built ADE on a foundation of educator-validated insights, research-based pedagogy, and enterprise-grade student data security.
Dr. Larry Federico
Chief Academic Officer20+ years as senior education research and teacher consultant. Specializes in K-12 core curriculum, ESL, and SPED strategies. Doctorate in Education from University of Nothern Colorado. Proven track record developing effective pedagogical methods that improve student outcomes at scale.
Dr. Scott Pickle
Large Minds Academy CEO30+ years as superintendent, principal, and teacher. Ed.D. from Grand Canyon University. Shaped district-level implementation, compliance documentation structure, and system-wide adoption viability.
App Functionality
An interactive, standards-based learning management system designed specifically for K-12 students and teachers.
For Students
AI-powered virtual instructors read content aloud with synchronized text highlighting
Read objectives out loud with instant feedback on pronunciation and comprehension
Click bolded words to hear audio definitions
Choose virtual instructor and customize playback speed
View course progress, completed lessons, and performance at a glance
Quizzes with immediate feedback and targeted re-teaching on missed concepts
Browse and enroll in grade-appropriate courses across multiple subjects
For Teachers
Comprehensive courses aligned to Common Core and state standards
Multimedia lessons with objectives, concept development, guided practice, and assessments
Lessons linked directly to educational standards for transparent accountability
Read-aloud activities, multiple-choice, text input, and verbal assessments
Monitor progress, track enrollment, and view performance analytics
Select from multiple AI instructor avatars to deliver lesson content
User Data & Privacy
We are committed to protecting student privacy and using data responsibly.
Account Information
- Email Address: Account creation, login, password recovery
- Full Name: Personalization and teacher roster management
- Password: Encrypted, never stored in plain text
- Role Type: Student, teacher, or administrator features
Student Learning Data
- Grade Level: Grade-appropriate course recommendations
- Course Enrollments: Dashboard and progress tracking
- Lesson Progress: Started and completed lessons
- Assessment Responses: Personalized feedback and review
- Interaction History: Learning engagement tracking
- Time Spent: Lesson optimization data
Personalization
- Selected Avatar: Consistent virtual instructor
- Playback Speed: Preferred audio speed
- Audio Settings: Enable/disable preference
Teacher Content
- Courses, Lessons, Assessments: All content remains your intellectual property
How We Use Data
- Personalize learning for each student
- Track progress and identify support needs
- Enable teacher performance monitoring
- Improve lesson effectiveness
- Ensure grade-level recommendations
Data We DON'T Collect
- No browsing tracked outside our platform
- No student data sold or shared
- No data used for advertising
- No audio recordings stored; only transcripts
Research Foundation
The methodologies in American Digital Education are supported by extensive peer-reviewed research. Visit our published research articles for full details on lesson design, student questions, image placement science, and interface design analysis.
Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.). (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing. Longman.
Berman, S. M., et al. (1991). Luminance-controlled pupil size affects visual comfort. Lighting Research & Technology.
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and Classroom Learning. Assessment in Education, 5(1), 7-74.
Chaparro, B. S., et al. (2004). Reading online text with a poor layout. Usability News, 6(1).
Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(1), 87-114.
Harp, S. F., & Mayer, R. E. (1998). How seductive details do their damage. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(3), 414-434.
Hollingsworth, J., & Ybarra, S. (2009). Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI). Corwin Press. Explicit Direct Instruction® and EDI® are registered trademarks of DataWORKS Educational Research. Used here to identify the instructional methodology described in Hollingsworth & Ybarra (2009). American Digital Education is not affiliated with or endorsed by DataWORKS Educational Research.
Lenzner, A., Schnotz, W., & Muller, A. (2013). The role of decorative pictures in learning. Instructional Science, 41(5), 811-831.
Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia Learning (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Mayer, R. E. (2021). Multimedia Learning (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Moret-Tatay, C., & Perea, M. (2011). Do serifs provide an advantage? Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 23(5), 619-624.
Norman, D. (2013). The Design of Everyday Things (revised ed.). Basic Books.
Paivio, A. (1986). Mental Representations: A Dual Coding Approach. Oxford University Press.
Rey, G. D. (2012). A review and meta-analysis of the seductive detail effect. Educational Research Review, 7(3), 216-237.
Roediger, H. L., & Butler, A. C. (2011). The critical role of retrieval practice. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(1), 20-27.
Rosenshine, B. (2012). Principles of Instruction. American Educator, 36(1), 12-19.
Schraw, G., Crippen, K. J., & Hartley, K. (2006). Promoting self-regulation. Research in Science Education, 36(1), 111-139.
Sweller, J., van Merrienboer, J. J., & Paas, F. (2019). Cognitive Architecture and Instructional Design. Educational Psychology Review, 31(2), 261-292.
Wogalter, M. S., et al. (2002). Research-based guidelines for warning design. Applied Ergonomics, 33(3), 219-230.
Navigate
- Reteaching Example
- ADA Calculator
- 1000's of Lessons
- Master Every Subject
- The Science Behind Every Lesson
- Features Built on Science
- Learn By Doing
- I Don't Understand
- Sound It Out (Phonics)
- English & Spanish
- Strategic Image Placement
- Assessment
- For Everyone
- Learn Anywhere
- What Makes This Different
- Interface Design
- Accessibility
- Implementation
- Leadership
- App Functionality
- Privacy
- Research