FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Steve Honig
The Honig Company, LLC
818-986-4300 / press@honigllc.com
Evidence-based early childhood curriculum to be made available through June 30 to all New York City public school families with children ages 0 to 5
NEW YORK, June 8, 2020 – In an effort to support families with young children throughout New York City during the COVID-19 school closures and provide parents and caregivers with at-home learning resources to keep their children on track academically, Parentpowered is offering its text-based family engagement curriculum to New York City public school families throughout the five boroughs, free of charge.
Formerly known as Ready4K, ParentPowered is an evidence-based family engagement curriculum delivered through text messages. Each week, parents and caregivers receive three short text messages with facts and easy tips on how to promote child development by building on existing family routines. On Monday, families receive a fact to inform and motivate; Wednesday, a tip for activities that build on family routines; and Friday, a text focusing on growth to reinforce, encourage and extend the activities of the week.
Families within all five boroughs of New York City can sign-up for the program at no cost by texting “NYC” to 70138 and answering a couple of basic and anonymous questions to ensure they receive curriculum specific to the age of their child. ParentPowered offers an early education curriculum for children from birth through fourth grade.
“As children continue to engage in remote learning with their schools and programs, it’s more important than ever that we support families with tools and strategies that help keep children learning and growing,” said Josh Wallack, Deputy Chancellor for Early Childhood Education and Student Enrollment at the New York City Department of Education. “This new resource will provide free, evidence-based family engagement curriculum to young children and families citywide, and we’re so grateful to ParentPowered for their partnership. I encourage everyone with children ages birth to five to text ‘NYC’ to 70138.”
The ParentPowered curriculum is aligned to nationwide learning standards with content on language and literacy, math and science, social and emotional learning, physical development, health and safety. The ParentPowered methodology has the strongest evidence base in the field and the program is continuously being evaluated and improved through ongoing partnerships at Stanford, Brown and Notre Dame universities. The ParentPowered approach has been shown to increase family engagement at home and school and increase child learning by 2-3 months over the course of a school year.
The widespread use of text messaging combined with its ease of use and short-message format is allowing school districts, educators and administrators to implement highly effective programs for the families they serve. 97% of parents in the U.S. have mobile devices and 98% of those parents regularly send and receive text messages. Text messages have a 98% open rate, compared with 26% for education-related emails. In addition, parents and caregivers from underserved communities typically use texting with the greatest frequency making the platform an effective way to overcome the digital divide and help families who do not have internet access or computers.
ParentPowered is a public benefit corporation that was established to pursue social impact by creating and providing parents with easy-to-use educational tools. The company’s primary product is its ParentPowered Core program, an evidence-based family engagement curriculum delivered via text messages geared toward children from birth through fourth grade. ParentPowered provides parents its products and services through school districts, Head Starts, public and private educational institutions, child care facilities and other community organizations and works to ensure equitable learning access to parents regardless of their economic situation. The company was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California. More information is available at www.ParentPowered.com and on social media: IG: @ParentPoweredFE, Twitter: @ParentPoweredFE, FB: @ParentPowered.
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