We were honored for our School Continuity Initiative, a program we created in March 2020 when schools were forced to close, impacting the academic lives and growth of millions of children. True to our mission to help children everywhere build a strong foundation for academic success and a lifelong love of learning, we created this program to offer preschool through middle school students free home access to our leading digital education programs—ABCmouse, Adventure Academy, and ReadingIQ. More than 80,000 schools, school districts, and teachers contacted us within days of announcing the School Continuity Initiative, allowing us to reach more than 1.2 million children. The children who participated in the program not only continued learning while sheltered at home, but they also experienced academic gains.

We recently shared the findings of an independently funded study that analyzed how children engaged with ABCmouse during the summer of 2020. The study found that:

• Children using ABCmouse for at least 45 minutes per week across three days, and completing 15 Learning Activities, were able to increase learning and minimize the learning loss that often takes place during the summer.
• ABCmouse is especially beneficial to those who start the summer with lower skills: with regular program usage, those students were able to catch up to their higher-skilled peers by the summer’s end, closing the gap by up to 87 percent.

Here is what we heard from a few of the many parents and teachers who reached out during this time:

“My daughter loves ABCmouse!  She has become more confident and quicker with her ability to add and subtract…I’m so proud of how I’ve seen growth even since schools closed!” – Parent of ABCmouse user

“This program has really helped our children grow at a time when social distancing was enforced.” – PreK Teacher, Pennsylvania 

“Last year I had the privilege of being the Kindergarten Virtual Teacher. I was able to provide ABCmouse for families and happy to say that for my students who used the apps and consistently attended school or watched recorded sessions they were reading at or above grade level by the end of the year.” – PreK Teacher, Texas

Thank you again to the City of Glendale for this award. It is an honor to be recognized by our community for our work in helping children everywhere build a strong foundation for academic success and a lifelong love of learning.

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The announcement of this partnership between Age of Learning and the Florida House of Representatives is one of the highlights of Celebrate Literacy Week, Florida! and the New Worlds Reading Initiative. The initiative is designed to help improve literacy rates through Florida’s first-ever statewide book delivery and parental-engagement program.

Age of Learning’s partnership offers every Florida family FREE access, through Dec. 31, 2021, to a comprehensive digital library of books at ReadingIQ.com/NewWorlds.

Literacy Week and the New Worlds Reading Initiative are meant to highlight how essential it is for children to have access to books to foster a lifelong passion for learning and put them on a path to success. Currently, only 47 percent of Florida’s students beginning elementary school are academically prepared for kindergarten, and only 43 percent of the state’s 3rd grade students are reading at grade level based on statewide assessments. These 3^rd grade reading struggles lead to negative long term educational outcomes: 88 percent of students who do not graduate from high school struggled with reading in 3rd grade. The free access to books offered to Florida families by Age of Learning through our ReadingIQ digital library is expected to help improve literacy rates in the state.

“Age of Learning is excited to support the New Worlds Reading Initiative through our ReadingIQ program,” said Age of Learning CEO Paul Candland.  “The easy-to-access ReadingIQ platform will immediately provide Florida’s children with thousands of high-quality titles from popular publishers that help them build and grow a love of reading, all while improving comprehension and literacy. This resource will also allow parents to develop a better understanding of their children’s current reading level and progress through the assessment feature of ReadingIQ, while ensuring each child has access to books that match his or her interests and level.”

Florida families can sign up for free access our comprehensive digital library at ReadReadingIQ.com/NewWorlds.

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Set a Routine

First, routine is critical. Kids in their early years thrive on routine, and they most consistently get this in school. It’s important to establish a daily routine while your child is at home and to follow it. Set times for reading, math, snack time, lunch, and even free play.

Keep a Journal

Encourage your child to write down what they see, hear, think, and feel briefly each day. If your child isn’t ready to write independently, have him or her dictate their thoughts to you. Any subject is fair game, whether or not it relates to the coronavirus. You’ll be making a lot of memories together during this time, and written recordings of them will become treasures for you and your child later on in life.

Start a Pen Pal Program

Kids love to get mail. Because contact with other kids may be limited, consider starting a pen pal program with classmates, family, and other friends. They can send their letters by email or by good old-fashioned snail mail. And, not only do kids get the benefit of writing, they’ll also love practicing reading when they receive letters from their pen pals!

Tell a Shared Story

Work together to make up a fun story. Begin a with an opening like “Once upon a time, there was a hungry frog.” Then ask your child to say the next sentence. Continue taking turns adding to the story until it is finished. This is a rich literacy and language-development activity that’s bound to bring big laughs. And when you’re done, you can create illustrations that bring the story to life.

Practice Measurement 

Before kids learn about standard units of measurement, like inches, feet, pints, and gallons, they can begin to understand the concept of measurement using non-standard units. Use shoes to measure the distance across a room (How many shoes does it take to cross the room?) or pencils to measure the length of a table. Use different sizes of cups and glasses to fill a large bowl or bucket with water. Then talk about how the size or the cup or glass affects the number of times you use it to fill the bowl or bucket.

Work with Patterns

We’re most familiar with visual patterns—patterns of shapes, sizes, or colors, for example—but patterns can also involve sounds or movements. Work with your child to identify the next item in a pattern you start, or alternatively have him or her start patterns for you to continue. Here are a few examples: Visual Patterns

• Small, large, small, large
• Red, red, blue, red, red, blue
• Circle, square, triangle, circle, square, triangle

Sound Patterns

• Snap, snap, clap, snap, snap, clap
• Long sound, short sound, long sound, short sound

Motion Patterns

• Sit, stand, sit, stand
• Arms up, arms out, arms down, arms up, arms out, arms down

Sort, Count, Compare

Provide your child with a pile of objects that includes different colors, shapes, or sizes, such as buttons, paper clips, or blocks. Ask your child to sort the objects, count how many are in each group, and order the groups from fewest to most. Challenge your child to find other ways the objects could be sorted. As an edtech company, we’re excited to do what we can to help everyone make the best of this unprecedented situation. And we’re here to tell you that you can do a lot to for your children during this time. Take a deep breath, do a little prep, and good luck!

Our Digital Learning Programs

Lastly, if you’re looking for educational screen time, we are providing free access to our award-winning digital library, ReadingIQ. Use the code LOVEREADING. You can also sign up for ABCmouse and Adventure Academy, or get free access through your school district. — Joel Kupperstein, SVP Curriculum at Age of Learning

The post You’re Suddenly a Homeschooler! How To Keep Your Preschooler or Kindergartener Learning. first appeared on Age of Learning.

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Adventure Academy

Our partnership with HMH brings an outstanding collection of classic, award-winning children’s titles, some of which include:

• Jumanji and The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
• Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
• The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
• Several Curious George^® titles by H.A. Rey
• Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton
• The Napping House by Audrey Wood
• Mouse Count by Ellen Stoll Walsh

Our recent nationwide survey of 1,000 teachers and 1,000 parents found that lack of access to high-quality books is a major challenge for children 12 and under, and that expanding availability is critical to improving reading skills. Students with access to both a traditional and digital library are 53% more likely to be reading above grade level, and exposure to a significant variety and volume of books fosters a lifelong love of reading. Guided by these findings and our team of literacy development experts, Age of Learning continues to expand our educational programs with quality children’s literature and non-fiction.

“Increasing children’s access to books that engage, inspire, and educate is fundamental to our mission,” said Doug Dohring, founder and CEO of Age of Learning. “Partnering with HMH to bring more award-winning and classic books to ReadingIQ, ABCmouse, and Adventure Academy will provide more opportunities for children to experience the joys and benefits of reading in our educational offerings.”

Our award-winning ReadingIQ platform recently added Reading Level Assessments, developed by the assessment team here at Age of Learning, in cooperation with leading education and assessment research organization SRI International, to seamlessly match learners with books at the appropriate reading level. ReadingIQ includes three widely used book leveling systems—Accelerated Reader^®, Lexile^®, and Guided Reading—and all books in the HMH collection are assigned a reading level. Many HMH titles are also professionally voiced to support engagement and comprehension among pre-readers and developing readers.

Visit www.ReadingIQ.com, www.ABCmouse.com, and www.AdventureAcademy.com to learn more about Age of Learning’s educational programs, or download the apps via Apple’s App Store or Google Play. All programs are available for families on a low-cost subscription basis.

The post Age of Learning Announces Partnership with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Bringing Large Collection of Award-Winning and Classic Titles to ReadingIQ, ABCmouse, and Adventure Academy first appeared on Age of Learning.

Developed by assessment experts here at Age of Learning, in cooperation with leading education and assessment research organization SRI International, Reading Level Assessments provide children age-appropriate passages and accompanying comprehension questions. The assessments, which take just minutes to complete, dynamically adjust their degree of difficulty in response to each child’s performance. ReadingIQ then recommends books at the appropriate level for the child. As children use ReadingIQ and improve their reading skills, the platform periodically prompts them to retake Reading Level Assessments to adjust their recommended level. Reading Level Assessments are currently available for ReadingIQ families and will be available for ReadingIQ teachers well before the upcoming school year.

ReadingIQ now includes three widely used book leveling systems, Accelerated Reader^®, Lexile^®, and Guided Reading, enabling teachers and parents to use their preferred system to adjust the reading level for each child.

We also announced the launch of ReadingIQ Show What You Know quizzes, a new listening and reading comprehension feature. Show What You Know quizzes provide engaging, voiced questions at the end of ReadingIQ books, helping pre-readers and readers build their comprehension and critical thinking skills.

According to recent nationwide surveys of more than 1,000 teachers and 1,000 parents, two-thirds of parents do not know their child’s reading level, making it difficult to provide appropriate reading materials. And teachers consistently report that children do not spend enough time reading outside of school. We developed ReadingIQ to address these challenges by providing children through 6^thgrade with access to high-quality books that match their interests and reading abilities.

Age of Learning founder and CEO Doug Dohring summed up the benefits of these new ReadingIQ enhancements this way: “ReadingIQ is more than a collection of nearly 10,000 high-quality books–it’s a literacy platform with the goal of developing and advancing children’s reading skills. These latest enhancements help ensure young readers more easily find books at the appropriate reading level to engage, inspire, and delight them.”

Today we also announced the recent launch of PlayCrew, a group consisting of a wide range of educators, parents, and children who test the company’s products and provide direct feedback to inform product design and development. Extensive in-person and remote research sessions with teachers and families helped shape many ReadingIQ capabilities, including the new Reading Level Assessments.

Available on computers, tablets, and smartphones, ReadingIQ offers nearly 10,000 expert-curated titles from leading publishers. To help strengthen the school-home connection around reading, Age of Learning provides the entire ReadingIQ platform at no cost to teachers, with the ability to assign books to their students. ReadingIQ is available at www.ReadingIQ.com and can be downloaded to smartphones and tablets through the Apple App Store or Google Play.

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ReadingIQ

Building on the success of ABCmouse.com® Early Learning Academy, we are bringing the same research-based, educator-led approach to the ReadingIQ digital library. ReadingIQ provides the best of children’s literature, including Caldecott and Newbery award winners, National Geographic and National Geographic Kids books, the complete Boxcar Children series, Curious George, more than 1,000 exclusive titles, and thousands of additional high-quality fiction and nonfiction books from leading publishers.

The entire ReadingIQ library is easily searchable by topic and leveled with both the Guided Reading and Lexile® systems so that children can find titles that match their interests and reading ability. ReadingIQ also includes more than 1,000 professionally voiced titles to support engagement and comprehension for pre-readers and developing readers.

As with ABCmouse, ReadingIQ is available at no cost to teachers for use in their classrooms, with the ability to assign an entire reading level of books to each student to read at home, completely free. Families who would like full home access to all of the ReadingIQ library can subscribe for less than $5 a month or $30 a year. ReadingIQ is available at www.ReadingIQ.com, or can be downloaded to smartphones and tablets through the Apple App Store or Google Play.

According to recent nationwide surveys of more than 1,000 preschool and elementary teachers and 1,000 parents of children 12 and under, sponsored by Age of Learning, lack of access to books is a major challenge for children’s reading development. More than 8,000 elementary schools in the U.S. – 10% of schools – do not have a school library. Yet teachers report that students with access to both physical and digital libraries are significantly more likely to be reading above grade level than peers without such access.

Seven out of 10 teachers report that students would benefit greatly from more parental involvement in reading outside of school, but only one third of parents know their child’s reading level. Moreover, 85% of teachers expect students to read between 15 minutes and one hour per day outside of school, but most students are reading less than the 15-minute daily minimum, and millions are not reading at all. To view our Reading Study, visit www.AgeofLearning.com/readingstudy.

ReadingIQ was created to address these challenges by expanding access to high-quality, high-interest books; strengthening the school-home connection around reading; and encouraging consistent at-home reading. In addition to making entire reading levels of books available for students to read at home for free, ReadingIQ enables teachers to set daily reading challenges, parents to create profiles for up to three children, and parents and teachers to track students’ reading progress.

“When kids master reading in elementary school, it sets them on a path to success for the rest of their lives, but only one third of fourth graders are proficient readers,” said Dr. Rebecca Palacios, member of Age of Learning’s Curriculum Board and the National Teachers Hall of Fame. “ReadingIQ is a game-changer for parents and teachers, giving all children a greater opportunity to become fluent and engaged readers.”

The post Introducing ReadingIQ, an Expert-Curated Digital Library  first appeared on Age of Learning.