1. Model Innovation Cities How the Most Innovative Districts are Leveraging Mobile Technology to Foster Academic Achievement in Pre-K Through 3rd Grade Students Presented to: FETC Jan. 30, 2014 Room S310BC Presented By: Dr. Barbara Nemko Napa County Superintendent of Schools & Ilene Rosenthal Founder and CEO, Footsteps2Brilliance, Inc.

2. Share Your Tweets!# FETCF2B 3. The Educational Challenges 46% of American children enter kindergarten lacking the basic language skills they need to learn to read. 88% never catch up 61% of low-income children have no childrens books in their homes. Changing demographics creates a need for multilingual instruction.Many parents lack the information and knowledge they need to help prepare their children for school. 4. The Research Children from low-income families: Hear 30 million fewer words before the age of 4. have a vocabulary of 650 words rather than 2,500 words in kindergarten (75% less). NAEP 2012 Study: Vocabulary is linked to comprehension. Title I and ELL students have stark achievement gaps in vocabulary. Reading has a massive impact on brain function and affects understanding in nearly all school subjects. A parents involvement in their childs education is the major determinant of success in school. 5. THE KEY ISSUE: How do you transform early learning environments in a way that will make a system-wide impact? 6. Footsteps2Brilliance Early Learning Mobile Game Platform2011 Footsteps2Brilliance 7. Model Innovation City Linking School, Home, and Community Through Footsteps2Brilliance 8. ALPS Series: Academic Vocabulary for Students 18 books over 320 games!www.myf2b.com 9. STEM Series: Alphabet Animals featuring 26 new books and 40 new games!www.myf2b.com 10. Foundational Skill Building Games 11. NEW: Karaoke Nursery Rhymes featuring 15 books record feature, 64 new games!www.myf2b.com 12. Common Core Lesson Plans 13. Everything in our System Can be Printed As a Flashcard 14. Sneak Preview! 15. Dr. Mark Edwards National Superintendent of the YearLeveraging Parents Mobile Devices to Scale Pre-K through 3rd Grade Curriculum Citywide 16. Dr. Paul Dakin Massachusetts Superintendent of the YearIncreasing Parental Involvement to Address Pre-K Capacity Utilizing the Footsteps2Brilliance Mobile Platform 17. Dr. Barbara Nemko 2013 Award 1 of 40 Most Innovative Superintendents in the US 18. Napa County 19. Closing the Achievement Gap In June, 2011, we conducted a pilot project in Calistoga for 18 four-year olds, primarily English learners, who had not been to preschool and were scheduled to start kindergarten in August. 20. Closing the Achievement Gap In addition to the regular summer boot camp curriculum, children were given iPads and a literacy curriculum called Footsteps2Brilliance. It was designed for the purpose of increasing the vocabulary of preschool students who were low-income English learners. 21. Closing the Achievement Gap The Calistoga kindergarten teachers thought it was a terrible idea to introduce technology into a preschool program. One teacher came in on her own time, during summer break, to document how bad it would be. By the end of summer, all the kindergarten teachers demanded iPads for the fall. 22. Closing the Achievement Gap The teachers were amazed at how engaged the children were. Interactive iPads are so different from books or television, and the program allowed the children to read the books in English or Spanish. 23. Blended Model of Instruction Calistoga Summer Bridges Program 24. What Results Were Achieved? In the fall of 2012, we did a pre- and post-test study of kindergarten students expressive and receptive language ability, using the nationally normed Peabody Picture Vocabulary test. In the pretest, 59% of students scored at age 6 or higher. In the posttest, the figure was 88%. 25. The number of English Learners performing at age 6.0 or higher grew by 35%, with 79% of students overall ready for first grade. The number of English speakers performing at age 6.0 or higher grew by 39% with 98% of students overall ready for first grade. 26. SCALE: Closing the Achievement Gap By Going County-Wide The program expanded to additional preschool boot camps over the summers of 2012 and 2013. It also expanded into multiple kindergarten classes. Even when class size in kindergarten went to 30, teachers reported having much more time for individualization because students were so engaged there were no discipline issues. 27. QUESTIONS???? 28. For further information, contact: Ilene Rosenthal, Founder and CEO Ilene@Footsteps2Brilliance.com 202-338-1223 or Dr. Barbara Nemko, Napa County Superintendent bnemko@napacoe.org www.youtube.com/Footsteps2Brilliance 2011 Footsteps2Brilliance