Widening the Reach for Early Literacy

Spanish translation of HGSE’s pre-literacy app Small Wonders, produced by Reach Every Reader and GBH, lets more families play and learn

Over half of American children are not proficient readers by the end of third grade, a year that represents a significant benchmark for a child’s educational trajectory. And researchers know that early literacy lays the groundwork for later success; a student who is unable to read adequately in first grade has a 90% chance of reading poorly in fourth grade, and a 75% chance of reading poorly in high school. 
 
As part of its work to provide comprehensive early literacy solutions through research in education, developmental psychology, and technology, the Reach Every Reader initiative — a collaboration between the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Integrated Learning Initiative, and Florida State University — is expanding access to its pioneering Small Wonders app. 

In partnership with GBH, the leading multiplatform creator for public media  that jointly developed Small Wonders, Reach Every Reader is now releasing a free Spanish translation, Vaivén de Palabras, to enable Spanish-speaking families to engage in the kind of conversational back-and-forth and play- or curiosity-based exchanges that are key to fueling early literacy.

Early Learning Apps

The English-language version of Small Wonders was released in spring 2021 as part of Reach Every Reader’s innovative approach to making early literacy widely accessible in new formats — in this case, via interactive, educational games and activities designed for children and their parents, available for free as apps for mobile devices. Small Wonders was one of three pre-literacy apps that HGSE released at the time, along with Animal Antics and Photo Play. Since then, the apps have garnered nearly 30,000 downloads, and Animal Antics and Small Wonders were selected for the Notable Children’s Digital Media List by the Association for Library Service to Children. 

Now, the team behind Small Wonders — which includes app developers from GBH and researchers from Reach Every Reader — is expanding that reach with Vaivén de Palabras.

HGSE Senior Lecturer Joe Blatt, a faculty co-chair of the Learning Design, Innovation, and Technology master’s program at HGSE, developed the Small Wonders app in collaboration with HGSE Professor Paola Uccelli, Lecturer David Dockterman, and researcher Rosa Turco, then a doctoral candidate who has since earned her Ph.D. from Harvard.

“We know that parents want to support their children’s readiness to learn how to read and write. We created the Reach Every Reader pre-literacy apps to help families do this, by providing fun games and activities that incorporate parent-friendly prompts for sustained conversation and vocabulary growth,” says Blatt. “By sharing these apps for free, we hope to make a difference for all children — so we are delighted that the Small Wonders approach to literacy is now even more accessible to Spanish-speaking families. We hope that Vaivén de Palabras brings joyful interaction and preparation for reading to an even broader audience of parents and children.”

“Vaivén de Palabras promotes back-and-forth conversations for Spanish-speaking families, so that parents can engage their young children in the language they know best.”

GBH’s Senior Executive Producer and Director of Digital Partnerships Bill Shribman led the production team that developed the app with HGSE. “We were delighted to be able to bring GBH’s expertise in creating educationally-based and intergeneration games in partnership with HGSE to encourage early literacy,” says Shribman. “Now with a fully translated version of our Small Wonders app, including Spanish versions of its many videos and catchy songs, we are excited that Vaivén de Palabras can reach a whole new Spanish-speaking audience.”

From the Reach Every Reader team, Uccelli and Turco led the research behind the app’s translated edition, ensuring that conversational interplay stayed at the center. Unlike other apps, which may tend to create distance between parents and children, Small Wonders/Vaivén de Palabras focuses on relationship building and talking as a pathway to learning. “Vaivén de Palabras was designed to bring parents and children closer by providing ideas for fun conversations that support young children’s literacy development and overall learning,” says Uccelli.

The app “promotes back-and-forth conversations for Spanish-speaking families, so that parents can engage their young children in the language they know best,” she continues. “Sharing personal anecdotes, creating imaginary stories, planning future events, and explaining and discussing emotions are all examples of back-and-forth conversations that parents and children can enjoy while using the app, but also beyond the app. What children learn while talking to their parents in Spanish will offer them a foundation for literacy not only in Spanish but also in English.”

Indeed, research shows that children with a strong foundation in their first language have a significantly easier time learning English, and it is beneficial for parents to talk to their children in their own first language. Vaivén de Palabras has the potential to expand pre-literacy support for millions of children and their families.

Vaivén de Palabras and HGSE’s other pre-literacy apps for families are currently available for free on the App Store and the Google Play Store.


The GBH team included Gentry, Bill, Kevin, Dan, Nolan, Jeff, Lizzy, Li, Louise, Kit, Sienna, Kimberley, Sophie, Mike, Bethany, Marnie, Alan, and Kate. Translation services provided by centauro.com.

We’re Hiring a Research Director!

Photo: c. Bill Shribman, GBH

GBH Education is seeking a Director of Research and Evaluation. GBH is a public media leader, based in Boston. 

This role reports to the Executive Director of Education and is responsible for leading the department’s research and evaluation efforts across a variety of interesting projects across school-based and out-of-school/community based educational settings. We’re looking for someone with excellent formative, summative, and market research chops, knowledge about edtech (K-12) or educational media (early childhood, youth), and associated quantitative and qualitative research methods expertise. 

The role is social impact oriented, and requires grant writing, communication, and people skills. We need someone who brings a service mentality working with internal clients in multifunctional teams. Good candidates would understand the nonprofit ethos yet be facile with product development research, and be strategic thinkers yet detail oriented. 

Advanced graduate degree in learning sciences, education, child/youth/human development, communication, or social sciences required. Candidates from underrepresented groups are particularly welcome to apply. 

More details and link to apply here.

Computational Thinking for Preschoolers: Modularity Activities

modularity-blog-pic

Producers from WGBH and Kentucky Educational Television and researchers from EDC have been collaborating on the research and development of brand-new computational thinking activities for preschoolers! These fun hands-on activities and apps (not yet published) were all created as part of a research project funded by the National Science Foundation called Integrating Computational Thinking into Mathematics Instruction in Rural and Urban Preschools.

 

Preschoolers can learn modularity and math through these fun activities:

Picnic Packer
Children work together to pack a (pretend) picnic lunch.

Animal Song
Children work together create a song with different animal sounds.

Make a Counting Book
Children create a counting book by breaking down the big job of making a book into smaller jobs.

Plan a Party
Children organize a (pretend) party with cake, balloons, and decorations.

Break It Down
Children put small dances together to make a bigger dance. Get a glimpse of the modularity app in development.


See how these activities are part of a larger computational thinking preschool curriculum in this Teacher Guide.

CT Teacher Guide

CT Standards

 

© 2019 WGBH Educational Foundation. All rights reserved. Funding provided by the National Science Foundation. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1640135. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Computational Thinking for Preschoolers: Debugging Activities

debugging-blog-pic

Producers from WGBH and Kentucky Educational Television and researchers from EDC have been collaborating on the research and development of brand-new computational thinking activities for preschoolers! These fun hands-on activities and apps (not yet published) were all created as part of a research project funded by the National Science Foundation called Integrating Computational Thinking into Mathematics Instruction in Rural and Urban Preschools.

 

Preschoolers can learn debugging and math through these fun activities:

Sound Shakers

Children fix sound shakers that don’t make sounds.

Monkey Dance
Children practice a two-step dance and identify mistakes in the teacher’s dance steps.

Monkey Bridge
Children fix a bridge that won’t stand up.

Colorful Caterpillars
Children debug clay caterpillars with colorful patterns.

Road Repair
Children use geometric shapes to fix holes in a road so a car can get across. Get a glimpse of the debugging app in development.

 

See how these activities are part of a larger computational thinking preschool curriculum in this Teacher Guide.

CT Teacher Guide

CT Standards

 

 

© 2019 WGBH Educational Foundation. All rights reserved. Funding provided by the National Science Foundation. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1640135. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Preschool Computational Thinking

Producers from WGBH and Kentucky Educational Television and researchers from EDC have been collaborating on the research and development of brand-new computational thinking activities for preschoolers! These fun hands-on activities and apps (not yet published) were all created as part of a research project funded by the National Science Foundation called Integrating Computational Thinking into Mathematics Instruction in Rural and Urban Preschools.

Not sure what computational thinking means? Computational thinking (CT) is a creative way of thinking that empowers children to use systematic strategies while solving problems or reaching a goal. CT allows children to identify problems/goals and then brainstorm and generate solutions that can be communicated and followed by computers or humans.

CT can be learned at a young age, and it can be practiced in non-programming contexts (in other words, without a computer). CT is not the same thing as coding or computer programming—instead, it’s a stepping stone that can help children learn these important skills when they get older. Practicing CT skills can also benefit children by strengthening their early math skills.

As children do these activities and play these apps, they will be practicing basic math skills, including: counting, one-to-one correspondence, ordinals, sequencing, and identifying geometric shapes. At the same time, they will be learning three core CT skills: sequencing, debugging, and modularity.

Check out the project in this video.

 

© 2019 WGBH Educational Foundation. All rights reserved. Funding provided by the National Science Foundation. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1640135. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.