Free early learning software
Waterford.org | Early Learning Software
A child who can read is unstoppable
Waterford.org partners with families, districts, educators, and communities to help every child build the skills they need to succeed in school and in life.
Waterford.org partners with families, districts, educators, and communities to help every child build the skills they need to succeed in school and in life.
Explore research-based classroom strategies with our webinar library.
Waterford Upstart teaches children the skills they need to be prepared for kindergarten, and it’s available at NO COST to the families. And it works! Low-income or affluent, rural or urban, children who get their academic start with Waterford Upstart begin on the path toward success.
Did you know 2.2 million children do not have access to public-funded early education?
That’s nearly half of America’s 4-year-olds, and more than 50% of low-income preschool-age children have no early education option.
THE OUTCOMES ARE TROUBLING
Children who start school without basic skills are:
More likely to drop out
from school
More likely to become
teen parents
Less likely to
attend college
BUT THERE’S HOPE
Waterford Upstart’s award-winning, at-home program teaches children the skills they need to be ready for kindergarten. Waterford Upstart is flexible, scalable, and ¼ the cost of traditional preschool options with NO COST to participating families.
- Improves child cognitive outcomes
- Empowers parents as their child’s first teacher
- Engages the whole family
Waterford Upstart Works for All Children
Children show significant and lasting literacy gains through the 3rd grade.
Support a Child
Waterford Upstart Children Outperform State Literacy Test Score Averages
Children who use Waterford software
outperform nearly 80% of non-users.
What does Waterford Upstart do for families?
94% of parents felt they were better prepared to support their child’s education
97% of parents said they became more aware of what their child needs to learn
99% of parents would recommend Waterford UPSTART to friends and family
99% of parents felt Waterford Upstart helped prepare their child for kindergarten.
Waterford Upstart Across the Country
- Waterford UPSTART States
- Non-Waterford UPSTART States
These are the states that we are currently in or have worked with. Please reach out if you would like to be a part of Waterford’s Mission.
How can you change a child's life today? Help us provide access to education, so a child can succeed in school.
Support a Child
The average Waterford Upstart graduate enters kindergarten reading at nearly a first-grade level.
Academic gains continue through the 4th-grade, especially among under-resourced populations.
Waterford users outperform 80% of non-Waterford users.
Sponsor
Be a part of our mission to provide success from the start to all children. Waterford.org seeks to give scholarships to unserved and underserved children. Sponsor a child, and join our cause! Your donations provide access to Waterford UPSTART to change a child’s future.
Donate Today
Partner
Join the movement! Waterford.org and our partners work to deliver success to the 2.2 million four-year-olds who miss out on early education opportunities every year. Partner with us to bring Waterford UPSTART and other projects into your community today!
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Register
Waterford Upstart and Waterford.
org help all children walk into their first classroom ready to learn. Take a moment and register your child (newborn to preschool-aged!) to see if they’re eligible for the life-changing, no-cost Waterford UPSTART.
What happens when I donate?
Waterford.org uses your donations to provide children with scholarships to access Waterford UPSTART. Your donations help empower families through personalized coaching, adaptive academic software, and access to new computers and internet for families who otherwise could not afford them, all to ensure children arrive ready for school on day one. Help by sponsoring a child to influence a change in their life trajectory.
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Hatch Early Learning | Home
The Hatch suite of early learning solutions complements and enhances your preschool & kindergarten classroom and supports early learners in reaching their next learning milestone! Hatch's early learning solutions build foundational skills across the 7 domains of learning in an interactive and engaging environment designed to foster a love of learning in young children.
Research-Based Design for Instructional Learning Products, Product Certification
Best PreK / Early Childhood Learning Solution Category
Ignite by Hatch™, Cool Tools Category
Connected Learning
The COVID-19 pandemic required Hatch Early Learning to rethink how we support our customers. One way was through connected learning. Using Ignite by Hatch™ enabled children to play developmentally appropriate digital experiences both in the classroom and at home, automatically sending data to teachers, no matter where learning was happening.
Children are Resilient
Social-emotional learning (SEL) has never been more important than it is today. Pandemic-related disruptions in the school year have left an urgent need for tools that promote children’s social and emotional development. Learn more about how Hatch early learning solutions support SEL.
Digital Equity
The pandemic highlighted a challenge of digital equity for many early childhood programs across the country.
Traditionally, early childhood programs do not provide devices for each child to support their learning. In the last school year, we have seen a decided shift in programs purchasing tablets and learning tools for all children in their classrooms. This allowed children to access high-quality learning content in the classroom and at home. Hatch has been providing child-safe tablets to early childhood programs across the country for many years. The Ignite™ by Hatch tablet solution has helped over 50,000 children in the last school year by providing them access to an award-winning, whole-child focused learning platform on a child-safe tablet that can travel with them from the classroom to home and back.
How Hatch Can Help
Ignite by Hatch was built to make teachers' lives easier, providing children with a digital learning tool that focuses on whole-child development, provides teachers with objective data, and supports each child and their individual learning goals. Learn more on our Ignite by Hatch page.
Valarie Londrie, Executive Director for Academics, Los Fresnos CISDFor pre-K, there was always anecdotal data, but it was isolated, and it was limited to a classroom. Now, we have common data that we can have conversations about and really look at our school system as a whole. Hatch is really helping our kindergarten teachers focus on where a student ended pre-K last year, and where teachers need to pick up and work in small groups or individually with students to ensure they’re ready to learn.
Free software: a new level of the education system
Free software: a new level of the education system
The state has got one more strategic resource, on the development of which the life of every person and the whole country depends. Therefore, the education system should train IT professionals who not only have a good command of existing high technologies, but are also able to create new ones.
However, higher and secondary schools are not yet fully adapted to solving this problem. The introduction of free software (FOS) into educational processes helps to correct the situation.
At the end of January, Pereslavl-Zalessky hosted the 14th conference "Free Software in Higher Education", organized by the company "Basalt SPO" in partnership with the Institute of Program Systems. A.K. Ailamazyan RAS (IPS RAS). Teachers of universities and schools, graduate students, software developers and experts spoke about their experience in using domestic free software to transfer knowledge and skills, discussed urgent tasks and problems.
It is necessary to be able to create strategically important technologies on their own, otherwise the country will become technologically dependent on the states where innovations are created. Until recently, Russia lived by these non-optimal rules: one of the key problems of today is the orientation of the educational process towards foreign information technologies.
Every year, our universities graduate, in fact, "opponents" of Russia's technological independence. “We are seeing the widespread use in the educational process of products of foreign manufacturers that have formed a developed ecosystem for promoting their solutions. At the same time, insufficient attention is paid to studying the possibilities and prospects for the introduction of domestic technologies. Such a powerful resource as education is not used effectively and purposefully to help solve the problems of ensuring the technological independence and information security of Russia,” said Arkady Kremer, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Association of Documentary Telecommunications, Head. Department of Electronic Data Interchange Technologies, MTUCI.
So far, the state program of reorientation of the education system to domestic technologies has not been formed. But the gaps are acute, so the developers of open source software and universities took upon themselves the solution.
Moscow State University approached the matter systematically: on the basis of the Viola operating platform and free software products, they developed the methodological foundations for creating a national system for the development of digital skills (SRTSN). It is supposed to be used to train personnel with the necessary digital skills in the interests of the competitiveness of the state. The foundation was laid for the creation of educational software and hardware systems built exclusively on domestic developments. A typical domestic hardware and software module for studying Internet technologies (TOMIIT) is the fruit of the joint work of specialists from the basic department of ADE at MTUCI "Technologies for electronic data interchange", IT companies "Basalt SPO" and MCST. The module includes computers based on the Elbrus processor and the Alt operating system. Many universities (Moscow State University, Higher School of Economics, LETI, MI VlGU, etc.) have already integrated courses from Russian software developers into the educational process.
Open Source gives students the opportunity to explore the inner workings of a software product in any degree of detail. Therefore, in the Kuban, Brest, Astrakhan and other universities, future software developers prefer to teach algorithmization and programming based on free software. This experience was shared at the conference by representatives of universities.
Cooperation between Russian software development firms and higher education helps to solve another problem of the current education system - the gap between university education and the requirements of employers. Students can apply the acquired knowledge in practice by taking part in the development of real products. The reports of Postgres Professional and RED SOFT specialists were devoted to special programs of work with students. The world of free software is generally very loyal to beginners: students can even try their hand at international projects. At the conference, Andrey Savchenko, the leading programmer of Basalt SPO and tutor of the international program Google Summer of Code, gave recommendations on how to participate in it.
As a result, the combination of scientific background, practical experience and market demands gives life to useful high-tech solutions. Sergey Abramov, director of the Institute of Information Systems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, spoke about one of these decisions. The Chutkiy Dom project (intelligent systems for buildings) is jointly implemented by the Institute of Program Systems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Internet provider Botik-Technologies and several technical universities.
The need for high-tech solutions for all spheres of our lives will only increase every year, so the correct preparation of future developers and users should begin from early childhood. “Today, a person who does not have programming competencies will be thrown to the “side of life” in the same way as in the last century there were those who could not read, write, count. Life shows that the pre-professional training of a resident of the XXI century should begin at preschool age,” said Anatoly Kushnirenko, Head of the Department of Educational Informatics, NIISI RAS.
He demonstrated the PiktoMir course for teaching preschoolers and elementary school students the basics of algorithmization and programming. According to the authors of the course, 100% of primary school graduates are able to reach the level of practical knowledge of programming, provided for by the current Federal State Educational Standard for ninth-graders. Education of children on the basis of "PictoMir" is already underway in many cities of the country, Olympiads are held according to a special methodology that gives teamwork skills.
Obviously, one of the engines of the digital economy will be robotics, so it is very important to instill in children a taste for technical creativity. Future developers of "smart mechanisms" comprehend the basics of programming and electrical engineering with the help of the UMKI constructor, complete with educational and methodological materials. This development of IPLIT RAS is not inferior to foreign analogues and is distributed free of charge.
It is important that the UMKI software package is included in the basic delivery of the Russian operating system "Alt Education" and in the domestic repository "Sisyphus".
Teachers also had to sit down at the desk: they need to master free software products and their teaching methods. The task is not trivial, given the colossal current workload of teachers, the volume of new material and the tight deadlines. Therefore, Russian software developers are trying to help teachers: the conference discussed the two-year experience of the kurs.basealt.ru portal for remote support of teachers. The portal is constantly expanding its library of educational and methodological materials, user instructions. For ease of learning, the materials are given in text and video formats. In two years, more than 300 people have already taken online courses and received certificates.
Summing up the results of the conference “SVE in higher education”, Alexey Smirnov, General Director of “Basalt SPO”, noted: “Ensuring the technological independence of the country in the current political situation is a task no less important than food independence.
Therefore, the task of orienting higher education towards the development, study and application of Russian technologies and solutions should have the highest priority. SPO is of particular importance, since it provides students with almost unlimited opportunities to participate in real projects for the development of system and application software, for studying and mastering computers on Russian processors.
Source: www.nkj.ru/prtnews/35601/
When is the best time to teach a child to read. Q&A/ Kidskey Online School Blog
“In kindergarten, my son immediately passed the competition and got into a special group for gifted children. He mastered the elementary school program in 3 years and already at the age of 10 had an IQ of 124 points. After school, he entered a free department at a prestigious lyceum, where there was a competition of 400 people for 60 places. Then he passed the exam and entered the university on the budget.
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I don't know what exactly is the reason for my child's success, but I think it's about early learning to read.
I started working with Anton when he was only 9months…”
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We came across such a story on one of the “mom” forums. But it was not even the story itself that interested me more, but the reaction to it. Other mothers were so inspired by the success of one child that they bombarded the author with comments. They thanked for the advice and scolded the opponents of early development. Say, thank you for dispelling our doubts about early learning.
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Of course, every mother wants her child to be able to read by school and learn the program more easily, but it is important to understand that not all children are ready for learning from an early age.
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In this article, we answer your most popular questions about early learning to read.
What is the earliest age a child can learn to read?
A child can be taught to read at the age of 3. Yes, he can really read at the level of a schoolboy. But do not rush if his brain has not yet matured.
This is not only a waste of time, but also a detriment to further development.
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Let's take a simple example. Imagine a 6-month-old baby who is not yet able to sit, and you want to teach him to walk. How to do this if he has not yet formed special neural connections and has not developed leg muscles? Theoretically, you can put him on stilts and let him walk. As a result, of course, he will go with great difficulty, but he will grow up disabled. Because in development the most important stage was missed, which is responsible for the coordination of movements in space.
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So it is with reading. From the point of view of neuropsychology, in children under 6–7 years old, the right hemisphere is actively developing, which is responsible for movement, perception, visual and spatial thinking. Therefore, at this age, more attention should be paid to the development of fine motor skills and physical activity.
If, however, at the age of 3 a child is seated for reading, this will lead to early stimulation of the still immature left hemisphere to the detriment of the right.
Since the study of letters and symbols at this age inhibits the development of visual-figurative thinking, and in the future this may lead to a lag in learning.
When is the best time to start teaching a child to read?
The answer is when the child is ready. In fact, there is no ideal age for mastering the skill of reading. The brain of each person is individual and develops at its own pace. At each stage of psychophysical development, the child has new abilities that are responsible for certain skills.
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Some people can easily start reading at 3-4 years old, because they are ready, while others will master this skill only by 10-11 years old and this is considered an absolute norm. It's just that the brains of these children develop more slowly, but this does not affect their abilities in any way.
Proceeding from this, it is more correct to start teaching children to read not earlier than 4–5 years old, when the right hemisphere and subcortical layers of the brain are already practically formed.
What factors influence a child's readiness to learn to read?
There are general factors influencing readiness to learn to read:
1. Which hand is dominant in a child
It is more difficult for children whose left hand dominates to learn. If you notice that your child eats, draws, and brushes his teeth more with his left hand than with his right hand, he may be left-handed. Then with early learning to read you should not rush.
2. Developed fine motor skills
The sooner and better the child develops fine motor skills, the sooner he will be ready to learn to read. Because it is fine motor skills that contribute to the development of mental processes that are so necessary for memorizing letters, numbers and symbols.
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Look at your child. If he can barely manage with a spoon, then do not rush to learn. Start working on fine motor skills.
3. Gender of the child
Girls' brains are known to develop faster, so they are naturally ready to start learning to read before boys.
But then again, all children are different, so you should not focus on this factor too much.
4. Temperament
Calm children are easier to learn than hyperactive ones. If you have a mobile child, do not try to seat him at the age of 4 with a book, let him run, play and develop. His time will come. Coercion can lead to the fact that at school he will be completely turned away from studies. Read more about the influence of temperament on learning in the article: Why a child does not want to study: what are the reasons and what should parents do?
5. Interests
If your child currently likes to draw or sculpt, do not try to switch him to reading. Thanks to their favorite hobbies, the necessary connections are formed in the brain of children, which in the future will help to easily master reading and other sciences.
How do you know if a child is ready to learn to read?
Do not rush things and do what interests your child. Play and watch.
And the moment when it will really be ready for reading, you definitely will not miss it. The child will begin to show a natural interest, and he will try to read the inscriptions on all the signs that you pass by while walking on the street. He will constantly ask you questions and pull you to help read what he himself cannot yet.
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At this moment, boldly start studying, and you will see how easy the process will go, and the child will learn to read.
How to start learning to read early so that the child does not lose interest?
Just play! Teaching children of preschool age and primary school should take place in a playful way, then the interest will not disappear and the result will please. Read more about this in the article: How to instill in your child a love of reading and teach him to read on his own.
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And here is what our teachers say about early learning to read.
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Valentina Melnikova, a teacher with 30 years of experience:
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“Dear parents, start introducing your child to letters as early as possible.
