1.7M
children
children
Over 1 in 5 pupils
Over 1.7 million pupils in English schools speak English as an Additional Language – 21.4% of the school population, and growing
DfE School Census 2024/25, published June 2025.
A UK EdTech company · Pre-pilot
Turning bilingualism
into an academic superpower
An AI-supported reading platform helping children with English as an Additional Language transition from conversational fluency to independent academic reading
ReadTwo is a UK-incorporated company building bilingual reading tools for the 1.7 million pupils in British schools who speak English as an Additional Language. Our first pilots are planned for autumn 2026.
§ 01 · The challenge
One classroom, two reading worlds
One in five children in English schools speaks English as an Additional Language. Many sound fluent within two years but still struggle for years more with the academic reading their classmates do independently
1–2 yrs vs 5–7 yrs
The conversational mask
Conversational English fluency typically develops in 1 to 2 years. Academic reading fluency takes 5 to 7 years or longer. The gap is invisible at the school gate and persistent in the classroom
After Cummins
Cross-curricular
Beyond English lessons
Maths word problems, science texts, history sources. Independent academic reading is the bottleneck across the curriculum, not just in English lessons
§ 02 · The approach
Anchored in the evidence on EAL
ReadTwo’s design is anchored in The Bell Foundation’s Five Principles for Effective Teaching of EAL Learners, the UK’s leading evidence-informed framework. The principles were developed by Professor Constant Leung (King’s College London) and Emma Parsons, and are used by Ofsted, the Department for Education, and the Education Endowment Foundation.
The Five Principles guide effective EAL provision in primary and secondary schools, which is the age range ReadTwo’s pilots address.
We teach English through high-quality, culturally representative literature, with cognitively demanding but linguistically scaffolded tasks, assessed holistically across all four language modalities, in a way that treats every child’s home language as an asset and their family as a partner.
01
Multilingualism is a resource
Side-by-side reading in English and the child’s home language treats bilingualism as cognitive infrastructure, not a barrier. Translanguaging is designed for and encouraged, not corrected away.
Bell Foundation Principle 102
High expectations, language scaffolded
Children read curriculum-aligned fiction, not simplified substitutes. The Quiet AI Coach provides in-context language support that maintains the cognitive demand of the text, following Cummins’ “scaffold the language, not the thinking” principle.
Bell Foundation Principle 203
Content and language together
Sessions are designed around reading real fiction. Vocabulary, idiom and cultural context are taught in the flow of the text, with explicit language objectives drawn from the book, never as standalone drills.
Bell Foundation Principle 304
Holistic assessment
Pilot evaluation is being designed to capture reading, listening, speaking and comprehension separately, alongside tutor-led structured retelling, rather than reducing each child to a single composite reading age. The four-modality view follows the Bell Foundation EAL Assessment Framework.
Bell Foundation Principle 405
Belonging and family partnership
Texts curated for cultural representation. Family-facing materials available asynchronously in the child’s home language. Validating the home language as an active cognitive asset is part and parcel of our approach, ensuring pupils build academic reading independence while maintaining deep cultural roots.
Bell Foundation Principle 5The Bell Foundation publishes the Five Principles publicly to guide schools and practitioners. ReadTwo cites them as the framework informing our design and is not endorsed by or affiliated with The Bell Foundation. See bell-foundation.org.uk.
§ 03 · The pilots
Validating the approach
with the children who need it most
Our first pilots are planned for autumn 2026. Across two complementary settings – an in-person primary school cohort in Greater London, and an online cohort delivered with a UK charity supporting displaced Ukrainian children – we will work with 188 Ukrainian-speaking pupils to validate the approach with the children who need it most.
The pilots are designed to be fully funded by ReadTwo, at no cost to the partner organisations. Our first language pair is English-Ukrainian, reflecting the founder’s lived experience and an immediate, acute need. Pilot delivery depends on the funding we are currently pursuing.
What the pilots are designed to test
- 12-week structured evaluation drawing on Bell EAL Framework bands and Education Endowment Foundation reporting principles
- Reading, listening, speaking and comprehension as separate measures, alongside tutor-led structured retelling
- Validation of the heritage language as an active cognitive asset, tracking how dual-language scaffolding accelerates independent academic reading comprehension
- Anonymised platform telemetry alongside teacher-validated comprehension checks
Language roadmap
Beyond Ukrainian
From Spring 2027, subject to pilot evidence and funding, we plan to add Polish, Romanian, Spanish and Cantonese – reflecting some of the largest and fastest-growing EAL communities in UK schools.
Polish
Romanian
Spanish
Cantonese
§ 04 · About the founder
A platform built first for two daughters
Hi, I’m Natalia Bulbuk, founder of ReadTwo. In 2022 I left Ukraine with my two young daughters during the war. As they began school in the UK, I watched them hit a barrier I now recognise as the academic plateau: confident in everyday English within months, but struggling for years with the academic texts their classmates were reading independently.
I have spent more than 20 years in data science and AI, most recently in senior data leadership roles. I built the first version of what became ReadTwo for my daughters. It worked.
What I built turned out to align closely with the evidence-informed approaches behind The Bell Foundation’s framework for EAL teaching – the UK’s leading body of practice in this field. That alignment gave me the confidence to take ReadTwo from a personal lifeline into a real product.
Our planned autumn 2026 pilots will help validate the approach with the children who need it most, before any commercial rollout.
§ 05 · Get in touch
Three ways to start a conversation
01 · Schools
Schools
We are exploring paid school partnerships for Spring 2027 onwards. Register your interest to be among the first to hear when applications open, and to help shape the pilot.
02 · Partners
Partners, advisors and supporters
Researchers, educators, foundations and mentors – we’d love to hear from you.
Email us03 · Families
Families
For Ukrainian-speaking and other EAL families: we know how quickly English can take over and a home language can fade. Our family product is in development, with beta access after the autumn 2026 pilots. Join the waitlist to hear first.