What does digital early learning look like?

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone has been asking how distance learning would really work. Between technological disparities, loss of synergy in the classroom, and everyone shifting to a new normal, it’s hard to see how students can get back and stay on track with their education.

These times are especially challenging for our newest learners, ages 0-5. Normally, these kids would enroll in a traditional onsite preschool or early learning program and begin their academic, social and emotional development journey. But early learning programming is facing the same challenges as the rest of the academic world.

Traditionally, Think Together offers in-person early learning programs and state preschool programs in our Bay Area and Orange County Regions. With COVID-19 limiting classroom sizes, and with the safety of the students and staff members in-mind, there has been the challenging task of transitioning early learning into a virtual program.

So, what do these programs look like?

Honestly, it isn’t that different. Our Early Learning Site Facilitators and AmeriCorps volunteers host classes twice a week; a blend of parent and child and parent-only components.

Our youngest learners participate via Learning Genie and Zoom in science experiments, music and movement, letter of the day and more. Our Early Learning Programs are also using break-out rooms for small group activities on topics like shapes, letters, numbers and operations, phonics, nursery rhymes, patterning and writing.

The parent-only component focuses on parent resources, learning about their parenting style and develop their parenting skills. Parent engagement is one of the most critical parts to setting up a child for the best start in school.

Think Together Early Learning Programs launched the school year on September 28 in our Orange County Region. We are proud of our Early Learning team for their efforts to deliver our programming to families in this new virtual environment.