We are proud to announce the creation of the Age of Learning Foundation, a charitable organization committed to helping children furthest from opportunity build a strong academic foundation by providing access to research-proven educational programs at no cost. Doug Dohring, Executive Chairman of Age of Learning, and Chairman of the Age of Learning Foundation, made the announcement at the Education World Forum in London this week, in an address to Ministers of Education of more than half of the countries of the world, representing nearly one billion children. The Foundation pledged to support up to five partner nations in 2020. The Foundation will provide free access to Age of Learning’s research-proven mathematics and English language learning programs, including our flagship product ABCmouse. ABCmouse has helped educate more than 20 million children to date, and 20 research studies—including multiple randomized controlled trials—have shown that it significantly improves early literacy and math skills. Additionally, the Foundation will offer Age of Learning’s world-class digital library with thousands of high-value books in English, with the opportunity to include local, culturally appropriate titles in partner nations’ native languages. Age of Learning has also developed a patented personalized, adaptive digital learning system that powers its programs with AI-driven technology. Working collaboratively with partners, the Age of Learning Foundation will provide these programs to all children across a country or province, enabling an individualized learning experience for each child. The Age of Learning Foundation will also deliver training and support expertise to facilitate implementation. It asks partners only to ensure the availability of basic technology infrastructure, commit to successful broad-scale implementation, and maintain minimum student usage levels. Interested nations and organizations can apply to be a partner at AofLfoundation.org. “According to UNESCO, more than 600 million children are not achieving minimum proficiency in reading and math, and a majority of those children are actually in school,” said Doug Dohring, Chairman of the Age of Learning Foundation. “The Age of Learning Foundation will help address this global crisis by providing highly engaging, highly effective digital education on a broad scale.” Age of Learning has long been committed to helping educate children whose families cannot afford high quality early learning resources, including through the company’s Bring Learning to All initiative. Within months of launching ABCmouse.com Early Learning Academy for families in late 2010, Age of Learning began making ABCmouse available at no cost through classrooms, and later in public libraries, public housing authorities, and other community institutions. To date, these initiatives have helped educate more than 7 million children, with in kind contributions of software and services from Age of Learning exceeding $150 million in value. The Foundation will expand on this work, helping many more children build critical academic skills, and engaging their families and communities to better support them.

“The Age of Learning Foundation marks the next chapter in our ongoing commitment to help children everywhere build a strong foundation for academic success,” said Paul Candland, CEO of Age of Learning. “Our team at Age of Learning has an immense passion for helping children in all communities flourish. Doug will help bring that passion to serve families worldwide as Chairman of this new Foundation.” The Age of Learning Foundation will manage existing Bring Learning to All deployments as well as develop new partnerships with countries around the world. To date, partnerships with UNESCO, Save the Children, United Way, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, General Motors Foundation, and other organizations have enabled children on 5 continents to benefit from high-quality early learning. For additional information, visit www.AofLfoundation.org.

The post Announcing the Age of Learning Foundation, Led by Chairman Doug Dohring, Providing Effective Digital Education Programs Globally to Help Children Furthest from Opportunity Build a Strong Foundation for Academic Success first appeared on Age of Learning.

The Bring Learning to All Initiative is expanding its reach in the San Francisco Bay Area, providing families throughout the Bay Area with free home access to ABCmouse Early Learning Academy via public libraries. Local families can now “check out” ABCmouse accounts for four weeks at a time from the San José Public Library, San Mateo County Libraries, Contra Costa County Library, and 13 other library systems.

Bring Learning to All is a Tides Foundation initiative that works to help close the access and achievement gaps in education by providing research-validated digital education resources to young learners, with a focus on low-income families.

Through Bring Learning to All, libraries are providing families free at-home access to the research-validated ABCmouse curriculum, including more than 10,000 ABCmouse Learning Activities (hundreds available in Spanish), several standalone mobile apps that can be used without internet connectivity, and digital assessments. The program is designed to increase school readiness and reading proficiency and can be accessed by up to three children per family. Libraries also receive physical books for each branch, training for librarians on the use of digital early education resources, and support for family outreach and education.

“The Bring Learning to All initiative is a huge benefit for our families. Providing the tools parents need to help their child succeed in school is one of our priorities,” said Jill Bourne, City Librarian for the San José Public Library. “Now families will have the opportunity to be more proactive in their child’s education by having access to this program from the comfort of their own home.”

According to The Nation’s Report Card, two out of every three children in the U.S. are not proficient in reading by the time they reach fourth grade. Bring Learning to All seeks to change that by partnering with libraries that play a critical role in serving at-risk children and by providing effective educational resources that build on classroom instruction at home.

So far, thousands of children in the Bay Area have accessed ABCmouse through Bring Learning to All, completing hundreds of thousands of ABCmouse Learning Activities, averaging 15 Learning Activities per week. Assessment data shows that children using ABCmouse through this program are averaging 20% growth in literacy and math skills after one month. Importantly, research shows that similar levels of ABCmouse usage help prevent a “summer slide” in reading and significantly increase academic growth in literacy and math.

As part of the Bring Learning to All expansion, three high-need library locations are providing tablets with mobile broadband for patrons to check out with ABCmouse accounts. “I love the format of ABCmouse! The kids really enjoy working on their lessons and the credits they earn!” said one Bay Area library patron. “My 7-year-old grandchild has become an excellent reader!”

To learn more about Bring Learning to All, including how to become a partner, please email Contact@BringLearningtoAll.org.

The post Bring Learning to All Initiative Expands in the Bay Area, Increasing Access to Early Education for Low-Income Bay Area Families Through Public Libraries first appeared on Age of Learning.

Research shows that the summer slide has a significant, cumulative impact on academic achievement, particularly for children in low-income households. The summer slide is a key factor behind a stunning statistic: by the end of 5th grade, disadvantaged children are, on average, nearly three grade levels behind their more affluent peers in reading (source: The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading). And, according to the National Summer Learning Association, summer learning loss accounts for two-thirds of the achievement gap in reading between children from low- and middle-income households by 9th grade.

But there is hope. While the school year will start before we know it, there’s still time for children to reinforce what they learned the previous year and prepare for the next one. Engaging and effective learning experiences can help prevent the summer slide by getting children excited to continue learning over their summer break.

Below are some helpful tips that families can use to maintain academic achievement over the summer from National Teachers’ Hall of Fame inductee Dr. Rebecca Palacios, Senior Curriculum Advisor at Age of Learning.

Visit Your Local Public Library

Visiting the library can help develop a love of reading and learning at an early age. In addition to thousands of books, libraries offer technology access, research areas, and fun learning activities.

More than 8,000 public libraries nationwide make ABCmouse.com available for families to use on site at no cost. Families get full access to the more than 10,000 ABCmouse Learning Activities, including books, songs, puzzles, and games that encompass key academic subjects. Patrons in some areas, including the San Francisco Bay Area and Detroit can also check out ABCmouse accounts from their local library to use at home through the Bring Learning to All initiative.

Read, Read, Read!

A 2004 American Academy of Arts and Sciences study concluded that children should read at least 4 to 5 books over the summer break to prevent summer  learning loss. Research shows that books that are “just right”for children–those that aren’t frustratingly hard or too easy–make the best learning experiences.

Regular reading matters: Choose a fun and engaging weekly book that you can read aloud as a family. Read a chapter each night, if it’s a longer book. Here are a few tips for making these reading sessions even more interactive and engaging:

1. Talk to your child about words in the book that rhyme or begin with the same letter.
2. Ask your child questions about what is happening in the story as you’re reading.
3. Discuss the book’s characters: their names, appearance, feelings, and actions.

With thousands of books to choose from, ABCmouse provides rich reading experiences for children in preschool through 2nd grade at their listening-comprehension or independent reading level.

Be Prepared for On-the-Go Learning 

Whether you’re on a plane, at the park, or in a store, every outing can be a learning opportunity! Ask questions and show kids different colors, shapes, words, and numbers in the world around them.

Listening and singing along to music is also a wonderful way for children to learn about the world around them and build a rich vocabulary. You can now access 175 ABCmouse children’s songs, including a special summer playlist that teaches the alphabet, numbers and operations, shapes, colors, and geography, on major streaming platforms such as Spotify, Google Play, and Pandora. Children can sing along to “The Letter S Song, “The Statue of Liberty,” “Five Little Monkeys,” and more.

Families can also download seven ABCmouse apps that offer ABCmouse content for offline use, making ABCmouse even easier for families to access—no matter where they go.

A recent research study showed that students who regularly used ABCmouse for at least 70 minutes per week over the summer demonstrated literacy gains equivalent to one month of academic instruction! These gains were sustained well into the following school year. Invest in summer learning today and reap benefits for your children this fall, and in all school years ahead.

The post Closing the Achievement Gap: Tips for Preventing Summer Learning Loss first appeared on Age of Learning.

To date, children have completed more than 2 million ABCmouse learning sessions in public libraries, and usage continues to grow. ABCmouse is available in large and small library systems in virtually every state and more than 70% of the largest 200 library systems, including all branches of the Los Angeles Public Library, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, and Houston Public Library. For a firsthand look at the impact ABCmouse is having in libraries, watch this brief video.

We launched ABCmouse for Libraries because of the critical role libraries play in serving at-risk children. Families living in poverty are more likely to visit a library than any other community cultural or educational institution, such as a bookstore, theater, or museum (Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education 2016). Since launching, we’ve continued to expand and strengthen ABCmouse for Libraries, adding a comprehensive curriculum for 1st and 2nd grade, Spanish-language Learning Activities, tablet compatibility, and more.

Earlier this year, in response to demand from librarians to enable their patrons to “check out” ABCmouse accounts, we launched the Bring Learning to All initiative. This initiative makes ABCmouse available for families to check out from their library and use at home for 4 to 6 weeks at a time. Families gain access to all 9,000+ ABCmouse Learning Activities, the ABCmouse Assessment Center, and a growing set of ABCmouse mobile apps that do not require Internet connectivity. Supplemental technology kits that include tablets with mobile broadband can also be provided to libraries for checkout.

Currently available in select libraries in California, Florida, and New York, this initiative brings together public libraries, funders, and in-kind contributions from Age of Learning to make ABCmouse available to families who may not otherwise be able to afford such resources at home.  Thanks to the generous support of partner sponsors including Southern California Edison, the California Community Foundation, PNC Bank, and others, we are making this program available to more and more families.

We look forward to continued collaboration with library partners to help children in all communities build a strong foundation for future academic success.

Libraries interested in offering ABCmouse at no cost to patrons can sign up for a free account here. Libraries and funders interested in participating in Bring Learning to All can email BringLearningtoAll@AofL.com for more information.

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Since 2014, ABCmouse for Libraries has provided our award-winning ABCmouse.com^® Early Learning Academy to public library patrons at no cost for in-library use. ABCmouse is now available in more than 6,000 public library branches nationwide—over 40% of all branches in the U.S and almost 80% of branches in California. Last year alone there were more than 1,000,000 ABCmouse for Libraries child user sessions across the country. The Bring Learning to All initiative expands these efforts by partnering with libraries to provide ABCmouse to their patrons on a checkout basis for use at home, with the goal of improving school readiness and reading proficiency.

Southern California Edison’s investment builds on our existing partnership with the County of Los Angeles Public Library, the sixth largest public library system in the U.S. Over the past two years, children across Los Angeles have had more than 130,000 sessions using ABCmouse in public libraries, with more than 200,000 hours of learning. At a recent reopening celebration for the A C Bilbrew Library in South Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas commended Age of Learning for the Bring Learning to All initiative and presented the company with a letter of appreciation from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

SCE’s donation is the latest step in this nationwide initiative and will benefit families at the East Rancho Dominguez, Lennox, and Woodcrest branches of the County of Los Angeles Public Library system. When fully implemented, Bring Learning to All will enable the 16,000+ public libraries across the U.S. to provide ABCmouse to families in their communities to help children build a strong foundation for academic success.

To learn more about Bring Learning to All, including how to become a partner, contact us at BringLearningtoAll@AofL.com.

The post Southern California Edison Funds Bring Learning to All Initiative for the County of Los Angeles Public Library, Enabling Families to “Check Out” ABCmouse for Use at Home first appeared on Age of Learning.