Tried and True

The first thing to know about our approach is that it really is based on tried-and-true methods. This may sound odd coming from an innovative company that applies technology to learning—aren't we "cutting edge?" The truth is, we apply cutting-edge technology to make tried-and-true methods of learning happen.

We take the words "tried and true" very seriously. By "true" we mean "research-based." When we first began developing our programs in the spring of 2000, we knew that early reading was probably the most important skill we could focus on. We needed a method that would work with the widest possible range of children. We read the research, and identified a key group of research studies that seemed to us to have the best evidence about how learning to read should work. We sat down with one of the key researchers and asked her, "What's the program we should be using that best implements this research work?"

Her response: "None of them."

So we made the decision to build it ourselves. Now, seen from one view, that was a crazy decision: there were many reading programs available at the time—why didn't we just pick one? After all, that's what just about everyone else does when they start a school. Why, especially as a start-up, go through the expense and pain of doing such a large thing that others have already done?

The reasons for us were clear, and get to the heart of why we are different than other curriculum providers.

First, learning to read well, right at the outset, is incredibly important. Even math performance is tightly linked to reading performance in the first few years of education. Therefore we needed the best possible approach to reading to maximize our students' abilities to learn in all other subjects.

Secondly, we had clear research showing how to do this well—the kind of research that, unfortunately, is not commonly available for many areas in education. This research gave us confidence that if we built a program around these principles, we'd have a program that would work for many different kinds of children, if the families put in the time to do the activities systematically and well.

Most of education does not have anything like the clear evidence for success that reading research has built. Where those gaps exist, we look for approaches that have been "tried" over and over and proven effective. We find examples of systematic, wide use of good materials that have led to successful, deep, wide-ranging learning over time. A clear example of this is the work of the Core Knowledge Foundation, which has been teaching compelling, rich content to children across America in a wide range of circumstances for more than a decade. Our own John Holdren comes from there; in fact he co-authored several books while there, including the "What Every Child Needs to Know" series. In the next section, you can hear John Holdren describe the influence of Core Knowledge on our approach and why it is good for your child.

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Our Educational Approach: Building on a solid foundation