(The following is our press release for the launch of our early childhood education flashcards, which we released to the world on November 3, 2022! The press release appeared on PR Newswire and K-12 Dive.)

NEW YORK CITY, NY, [November 3, 2022] — Brainscape, a leading web and mobile education app, is launching a new early childhood learning app for kids aged 3 to 9, which has been described as “a complete rubric for young children’s development” and a “powerful antidote to summertime and COVID learning loss”.

“Brainscape's Early Childhood product offers the most scientifically-optimized way to accelerate young kids’ core skills of numeracy, reading, communication, and emotional intelligence,” explains founder and CEO, Andrew Cohen, who refers to the app and its collection of 2,600+ smart, adaptive flashcards as a “nearly unfair” advantage for children.

Using Brainscape’s spaced repetition algorithm, which adapts to the individual child’s pace of learning, parents are able to help young children advance their grasp of the key skills much quicker than with typical learning approaches and childhood apps. It’s also targeted at bridging summertime and COVID learning loss.

Addressing kids' need for confidence-based learning

Brainscape first recognized the opportunity for such an early childhood product at the beginning of 2020, during COVID-19’s initial quarantine period, when thousands of its professional-level users—particularly medical, nursing, and law students—began making and using ‘Sight Words’ flashcards at home with their own children or young relatives.

"As a traditionally adult-focused study platform, I honestly didn't expect Brainscape to become so popular with young kids," says Cohen.

"It's not like Brainscape offers any of the animated cartoons, stories, games, or quests that preschoolers might traditionally expect to see in an app. And Brainscape also isn't really a babysitter app, which parents are accustomed to plopping in their kids' lap.

"But somehow, kids seemed to love working with their parents and customizing their own flashcard repetition sequences based on their pace of mastery of each sight word. They actually wanted to learn with Brainscape."

In other words, Brainscape differs from most other childhood learning apps by putting the control in the child's hand, with the guidance of their parent. Rather than selecting the correct answer, children simply reveal the answer side of the flashcard and then rate their own confidence on a 1-5 scale, thus determining how soon the flashcard will repeat.

"Learning how to deliberately attack one's own weaknesses is the most important early skill for building true strength in any area", Cohen reminds parents.

Covering the key foundational skills

Brainscape's new Early Childhood flashcard collection was built by a team of experienced educators, within the same Brainscape app used by adult users in higher education and beyond. The collection condenses the entire pre-k through 2nd grade curriculum into the 2,600+ most critical concepts, and divides the decks between two age groups (ages 3 to 6 and ages 6 to 9).

The flashcards begin with concepts as basic as identifying letters and numbers, then progress through more advanced concepts like phonemes, sight words, addition, and subtraction. Parents and children can jump in at whatever point aligns with their existing skill level.

Brainscape's Early Childhood flashcards collection also includes image-based flashcards for various "Things around me" concepts such as animals, vehicles, emotions, careers, and other topics important for young children to learn about.

"We see this product not just as a learning app, but as a rubric for all the fundamental literacy, numeracy, and emotional development skills that children should have when entering kindergarten through second grade," concludes Cohen. "Combined with Brainscape’s blend of active recall, metacognition, spaced repetition, and interleaving practice, we have now leveled the playing field at this key stage before any opportunity gaps begin to creep in."

For more information about Brainscape’s new app for early childhood learning, visit https://brainscape.com/learn/early-childhood-education.

About Brainscape

Brainscape is an adaptive study app that allows users to create, find, and share flashcards for hundreds of subjects. With an algorithm grounded in spaced repetition and other cognitive learning principles like active recall, metacognition, and interleaving practice, the app empowers learners to absorb and retain knowledge more efficiently than with any other study method. While Brainscape is popularly used by college-level students (and higher) facing important exams and certifications, the new early childhood app is engineered for parents with kids aged 3 - 9.

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