The Waterford Upstart Summer Learning Path is a summer program for New York four-year-olds being offered to families at no cost and is currently open for registration. The program is being offered in eight states this year, and will serve over 4,000 families this summer, including 700 four-year-olds in New York state. The registration deadline for the program is coming up on Tuesday, June 8.

 

According to the organizers, the program’s youngest learners are some of the most vulnerable, educationally, due to the pandemic. Nationally, there is concern that many preschool-aged children will not be ready for kindergarten in the fall. They said research has shown that students who enter kindergarten without key skills such as sharing and listening to instructions are less likely to graduate high school.

 

Laptops and internet access are provided at no cost to families who need these resources. The program organizers said the program provides positive parent-child interactions while delivering personalized, online programming 20 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Families are also given support through a family coach as well as tips to continue engaging their children offline.

 

Last year, Waterford Upstart held the program across 9 states, with more than 13,000 registered children. Organizers said that using the program’s software five days a week over the course of 13 weeks, it allowed participating children achieve an average grade equivalence of “Kindergarten Advanced” level—which is what most children score at the end of their kindergarten year, offsetting learning loss due to the COVID-19 slide. A video of the program can be watched here.

 

The program is an adjusted version of Waterford.org’s flagship, in-home kindergarten readiness program, Waterford Upstart. This program seeks to support the students and families who have been affected by COVID-19, either through personal economic hardship or due to the indefinite closure of many PreK and Head Start options. Organizers said Waterford.org generally serves 300,000+ children across 40+ states per year, and the $3 million in funding for the 2021 summer program is possible due to donations from the group’s philanthropic partners, including the Overdeck Family Foundation.

 

According to the program organizers, Waterford.org is an early education nonprofit with a mission to achieve universal literacy for children through equity, access and family empowerment. It develops educational tools that guide students along adaptive, individualized learning paths toward fluent reading and lifelong learning.

 

Organizers say Waterford empowers parents as a child’s first teacher and supports teachers in taking the right actions at the right time for their students. They say their programs have been rigorously tested and proven, and have been supported by a variety of governmental and philanthropic organizations, including support from a a federal EIR grant, The Studio @ Blue Meridian and the TED Audacious project.

 

Independent research shows the average Waterford Upstart graduate enters kindergarten reading at nearly a first-grade level and maintains those gains through the fourth grade. According to the program organizers, children develop foundational reading and social-emotional skills, and parents are empowered to become their child’s first and most influential teachers. The children use adaptive software just 15 minutes a day, five days a week in the year before they start school. The organization also fuels family involvement in their child’s early education through parent coaches and fun educational activities parents can complete with their children offline.

 

More information is available here.