Nationally renowned districts are leveraging their community’s existing technology infrastructures – - smart phones, tablets, computers – - as a city-wide effort to prepare all students to read proficiently by the 3rd grade. The results have dramatically increased vocabulary and comprehension, and brought communities together around literacy.

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 children’s
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 parent’s involvement in their child’s
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 Platform
2011 Footsteps2Brilliance™

7. Model Innovation City
Linking School, Home, and Community
Through Footsteps2Brilliance

9. ALPS Series:
Academic
Vocabulary
for
Students
18 books
over 320
games!
www.myf2b.com

10. STEM
Series:
Alphabet
Animals
featuring 26
new books
and 40 new
games!
www.myf2b.com

11. Foundational Skill Building Games

12. NEW:
Karaoke
Nursery
Rhymes
featuring
15 books
record
feature,
64 new
games!
www.myf2b.com

13. Common Core Lesson Plans

14. Everything in our System Can be
Printed As a Flashcard

15. Sneak Preview!

16. Dr. Mark Edwards
National Superintendent of the Year
Leveraging Parents’ Mobile Devices to Scale Pre-K
through 3rd Grade Curriculum Citywide

17. Dr. Paul Dakin
Massachusetts Superintendent of the Year
Increasing Parental Involvement to Address Pre-K Capacity
Utilizing the Footsteps2Brilliance Mobile Platform

18. Dr. Barbara Nemko
2013 Award
1 of 40
Most Innovative Superintendents in the US

19. Napa County

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. Blended Model of Instruction
Calistoga Summer Bridges Program

25. 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%.

26. 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.

27. 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.

28. QUESTIONS????

29. 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™