Bean Blog

EDC’s Center for Children & Technology and SRI International have published the results of a study reviewing some of the PBS related shows and games produced under the Ready to Learn initiative.

The results validate things that we have known for years…and that have been integral to many Bean Creative projects: children, particularly lower income and underserved children, can truly benefit from the kinds of educational media and interactive experiences we work on every day.

“Many low-income preschool children start kindergarten far behind their more affluent peers in early literacy skills, so effective interventions are important,”says William Penuel, Ph.D., director of evaluation research for SRI/CTL. In fact, children with the greatest need for early reading skills made the biggest gains during the 10-week study. The bottom 20 percent of preschoolers in the literacy classrooms learned an average of 7.5 more letters than did children in the comparison classrooms.

These findings are just the sort of thing that make our day at Bean Creative. While we have worked for PBS, and many PBS stations and producers, at heart it is our belief in the power of public media and education that drives us.

It’s also great to see the specific mention of Super Why! – a program we know well… more info on that soon!

For more details on the study, see: http://cct.edc.org/ready_to_learn.asp