Effective Literacy Website #2

Yoneko Kanichy

ED 638 Fall 2018 Intersession

Dr. M. Rivera

IRA Newsletter Project: Effective Literacy Website #2

Starfall Education Foundation, a publicly supported nonprofit organization is a website that teaches Basic English reading and writing skills for young children. The focus is on preschoolers, and kindergarteners. Founded in 2002, Starfall educates children how to read by using games and phonics. Starfall Education Foundation strives to create a safe and playful environment for all children. 

Starfall's founder namely Stephen Schutz never seized to forget his childhood as a struggling reader. Because of this deficit in him he was naturally motivated to create a resource to assist children with the same background. After two years of dedication and development, the website opened on August 27, 2002. The concept of this website was to create an environment "Where Children Have Fun Learning to Read^™." Starfall offers assistance to the public completely free of charge. Starfall developed and expanded to become a fully developed kindergarten English and Language Arts curriculum and a comprehensive pre-K curriculum. Throughout its development and expansion, the Starfall’s offerings have grown in the number of songs, books, and mathematics activities extending to second grade. Its low-cost membership program extends the free content for enjoyment to include delightfully animated songs, mathematics, and reading activities spanning from pre-k to second grade.

Further advancing into 2012, Starfall expanded and began providing its activities as apps for mobile devices. Starfall is now a popular place where just any child can learn reading and mathematics through exploration.

Stephen Schutz’s wife Susan, a teacher in New Jersey and New York City in the 1960s is a passionate educator. With the passion for education and fifteen years of full support, the Polis-Schutz family donated their full interest to this Foundation. With the family’s love and support for education, their oldest son, Jared Polis, also developed the passion for education where he also served on the Colorado State Board of Education (2000-2006).  He also founded two other educational non-profits.

Starfall creates free and low-cost experiences whereby children can successfully learn through exploration. On the Starfall website and in Starfall classrooms, while children are learning, they do have fun in an environment of collaboration, astonishment, and games. Children are positively reinforced assuring their confidence, intrinsically motivated, and most importantly successful readers.