Age of Learning, one of the top educational technology producers of digital and online learning programs for children, celebrated a major milestone this year. Its flagship product, ABCmouse.com Early Learning Academy, marked its 10th anniversary.
While the ABCmouse.com website launched publicly in 2010, the Age of Learning team, including leading childhood education professionals, had already spent more than three years planning, developing, and testing ABCmouse before it launched with an early learning curriculum covering preschool through kindergarten and offering more than 2,000 learning activities. Just six months later, ABCmouse received the first of its many awards, the Parents’ Choice Gold Award. In 2014, Age of Learning released ABCmouse Early Learning Academy as an iOS and Android app, making its comprehensive early learning curriculum—now with more than 5,000 learning activities—available on tablets and smartphones. Since then, ABCmouse has regularly ranked as one of the leading children’s learning app in both the kids and learning categories of the App Store. In 2015, ABCmouse hit another major benchmark when the first 1 billion learning activities were completed on the program. This number has grown exponentially, and to date, children have now completed over 7 billion learning activities on ABCmouse.
Age of Learning has also continuously worked to keep the ABCmouse product growing to meet the needs of older children and to make the curriculum even more comprehensive: adding a 1st grade curriculum to ABCmouse in 2016 and a 2nd grade curriculum in 2017. The ABCmouse curriculum now offers five times the number of learning activities—more than 10,000—than it did when Age of Learning launched it 10 years ago! There’s even a new My ABCmouse Classroom Live experience within ABCmouse, delivering daily classes with on-demand instruction led by real teachers and independent learning activities, a high-priority feature Age of Learning developed rapidly in 2020 to better meet the growing needs of children affected by pandemic-related school closures who were homeschooling.
Doug Dohring, the founder and Chairman of Age of Learning, first began working on ABCmouse after realizing the potential of creating a children’s website focused on a high-quality early education curriculum. By combining a comprehensive, standards-based curriculum designed by education experts with an engaging entertainment platform that makes learning fun for kids, the Age of Learning team has successfully helped educate millions of children all over the United States. Reflecting Age of Learning’s commitment to help children everywhere build a strong foundation for academic success, the company launched a series of Education Access Initiatives to reach millions of additional children by offering the full, award-winning ABCmouse program at no cost to teachers, libraries, and community centers, including afterschool programs and public housing authorities throughout the U.S.
ABCmouse isn’t just popular—it works! And Age of Learning is committed to funding independent research to evaluate and report on its efficacy. Three large-scale research studies assessed the effectiveness of ABCmouse and concluded that the program helps accelerate children’s learning and helps them advance in phonics, vocabulary, literacy, and numeracy. One study reported that children who frequently used ABCmouse scored more than 50 percent higher than children who had not subscribed to the site on reading and math skills assessments.
The ABCmouse team at Age of Learning has been incredibly proud of its success in the U.S. and has worked to extend the reach of ABCmouse globally. Two years ago, Age of Learning partnered with Tencent to launch the ABCmouse English Learning Academy in China to great success. The program, designed for children ages three to eight, features more than 5,000 different learning activities and includes games, songs, and language books. After the success of ABCmouse in China, Age of Learning forged a partnership the following year with Rakuten to offer the ABCmouse English Learning Academy exclusively Japan. The company expects its global expansion to accelerate in the coming years, with ABCmouse reaching into Europe and South America. In 2020, Age of Learning also launched the Age of Learning Foundation, a non-profit philanthropic organization to extend the company’s education outreach efforts to the children furthest from opportunity worldwide.
At the Age of Learning 10th anniversary company event, founder Doug Dohring spoke to his company about their success over the last decade.
“Through ABCmouse, we’ve made a difference in the lives of millions of children, parents, and teachers. The success of this project is based on the talent within our team. I am incredibly proud of the work our staff have done with ABCmouse over the past decade and am excited to see what we can accomplish with the next.” – Doug Dohring, founder and Chairman of Age of Learning, Inc.
