Los Angeles, CA (November 16, 2010)—The ABCmouse.com Early Learning Academy, a pioneering, full online curriculum, preschool through kindergarten educational website developed especially for children ages 2 through 6, was publicly launched today. ABCmouse.com provides parents and teachers with a safe, engaging online environment where young children can learn their “ABC’s” using a computer mouse, thus the name ABCmouse.com.
The goal of this new and unique learning experience is to help children build a strong foundation for future academic success by providing engaging educational content that supplements and supports preschool, pre-k and kindergarten programs. The site’s comprehensive curriculum, developed with leading education experts, includes all generally accepted subjects of early childhood education—with each subject taught through a wide range of learning activities. ABCmouse.com also offers a unique rewards system that recognizes children’s educational accomplishments and encourages them to continue progressing through the site’s many academic lessons and levels. (The company has filed multiple patents related to their uniquely designed educational content delivery methods and systems.)
ABCmouse.com is developed specifically to help young children thoroughly learn educational basics in reading, math, beginning science, social studies, art and music. The website offers a depth and breadth of educational content for early learners never before seen in one location on the web.
From ABC’s and 123’s to Thank You and Please, ABCmouse.com is “Bringing Learning to Life” by offering more than 2,000 individual learning activities, including online books, games, songs, puzzles, art activities and printables contained within more than 350 custom lesson plans spanning six academic levels—all tailored for preschool-, pre-k- and kindergarten-aged children.
The website and its content have undergone extensive testing, registering more than 10,000 families throughout the U.S. and Canada throughout the Alpha and Beta test phases.
You know, we watch a lot of educational programming on TV but ABCmouse.com is so much better because she’s actually working with the computer, learning skills, putting together puzzles, turning pages in a book on the computer, and that’s so much better than her just sitting on the couch and staring at a screen.
ABCmouse.com is definitely getting my daughter ready for school. I would absolutely recommend ABCmouse.com to other people. I’ve already recommended it to my friends. It truly is a revolutionary new website. I’ve never seen anything like it. We’re really enjoying it as a whole family, and I can’t recommend it more highly.
—Cate M., librarian (two masters degrees), mother of 4-year old daughter
Unlike most other children’s websites, ABCmouse.com has no advertising, pop-up ads, or links to other websites, so children can learn and explore with their parents or teachers or on their own, depending on their age and experience, in a safe and secure online environment.
ABCmouse.com also helps bring families together by enabling parents to invite extended family members (grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins) and friends to participate in their children’s education. Features that support this interaction include the site’s easy-to-use, safe and secure, proprietary messaging system through which the child can share completed educational lessons and artwork, as well as send and receive audio, video, and text messages. Family members can also record and save the readings of books and stories for the child—a feature especially embraced by grandparents who may live far away from their grandchildren.
The ABCmouse.com Early Learning Academy is available to families on a low-cost subscription basis (see monthly and yearly subscription rates cited below) and allows up to three children per household for one low fee. In addition, the company has announced that at launch, the ABCmouse.com. Early Learning Academy will be available free of charge to all public schools throughout the United States and Canada that apply for the program.
Owned and operated by Age of Learning, Inc., located in Glendale, CA, the ABCmouse.com Early Learning Academy is the latest venture from the founding management team of the enormously popular youth entertainment website, Neopets.com, led by Founder and CEO Doug Dohring. Under this founding management team’s direction, Neopets.com grew to become one of the most popular sites for children on the Internet from 2000 to 2005. With more than 12 million unique monthly visitors and serving more than five billion monthly pageviews, Neopets.com, accessible in 11 languages worldwide, was one of the top-10 “stickiest” websites in the U.S. when it was acquired by Viacom in 2005.
Since the completion of the sale of Neopets, Inc., Age of Learning’s management team has dedicated its resources and more than three years of development time to designing and building ABCmouse.com into the premier educational destination for young children on the web. The talented staff of creative artists, designers, writers, programmers and musicians, guided by the organization’s curriculum advisory team, continues to create new and innovative content, ensuring the site is always fresh and engaging for young learners. The company’s commitment to quality, coupled with the unparalleled breadth and depth of its early childhood curriculum, make each visit to ABCmouse.com an opportunity for a stimulating and rewarding learning experience for every young child.
“After more than three years in development and extensive website testing with more than 10,000 families, we have been extremely pleased with the positive response from parents and educators to our site content and delivery systems,” said Mr. Dohring. “The rate at which children are learning as reported by our members, has exceeded our own expectations.”
To ensure the highest level of educational value of ABCmouse.com throughout the content development process, Age of Learning has closely collaborated with leading childhood educational professionals, including careful review of every activity on the site.
Educational advisors include Kimberly Oliver Burnim, a National Teacher of the Year Award recipient; Dr. Rebecca Palacios, pre-k/kindergarten teacher for more than 25 years and a founding director and past vice-chairperson of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), an organization that has certified more than 80,000 teachers in the United States over the past 20 years; Phyllis Baecker, a highly experienced professional editor with more than two decades of experience with several leading children’s educational publishers, including Scholastic, Inc.; and Dr. John Bollard, a professional lexicographer with more than 25 years of experience, Editor of The Scholastic Student Thesaurus (2002) and Children’s Thesaurus (1998); Contributing Editor of The New Oxford American Dictionary (2001); and Consulting Editor for Webster’s New World Thesaurus (1996). Dr. Bollard advises on children’s literature content and guides the development of the extensive ABCmouse.com glossary.
“Research has shown that children learn more from birth to age five than at any other time in their lives,” said Ms. Burnim. “It would be my dream to have all children come to kindergarten prepared. Unfortunately, that is not the case at this time. I strongly believe that children who complete the curriculum of ABCmouse.com during these all-important formative years will be very well prepared. I highly recommend it.”
Added Dr. Palacios, “As educators, we know that parents want to help their young children learn, but often times don’t know where to turn for the right educational resources. I have never seen a single educational resource as comprehensive as the curriculum on ABCmouse.com. If I could recommend only one online resource to parents of young learners, it would be ABCmouse.com, without a doubt.”