September 23, 2021: Since Age of Learning was founded 14 years ago, we have been proud to call the City of Glendale our home. Last night, we were thrilled to receive Glendale Tech Week’s Best Breakthrough Award, which is given to a tech company that successfully pivoted during the pandemic by developing solutions and seeking opportunity in the face of adversity.
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.