The goal of ACP's Early Grade Literacy Program is to develop a comprehensive solutions to address ongoing international development objectives to improve early grade literacy in developing countries primary grades. We are taking the lessons learned and the recommendations from teachers and administrators to build out complete sets of tablet applications designed to help children learn to read at an early age. Additionally, we are developing training programs to educate teachers on how to use the technology in the classroom to improve literacy.

ACP is working with the partners in Haiti to select schools to participate in the ACP Early Grade Literacy Program in the 2016-2017 academic year. The program will require a period of six months total, with two months of implementation and four months of follow-up. At the end of the two month implementation period, school administrators, tablet administrators, teachers, and students will have a structured tablet program focused on early grade reading that is sustainable and requires minimal external support. At the end of the total six month period, the program will be sustainable without any external support. Follow-up visits will be conducted twice a year to ensure the program is continuing in a successful direction.

ACP is increasing the number of applications being developed for the program and enhancing support to include both the Android and Apple mobile operating systems. The applications currently under development only contain the first of three needed parts. Currently, the applications only focuses on the basis for learning to read by developing the students’ phonemic awareness. The next part of the application will need to contain sight words that enable students to begin to decode words using phonemic awareness learned from the first part of the application.  As students gradually develop a strong connection between the spelling, pronunciation, and meaning of words, they begin to internalize them as sight words. The third part of the application will need to contain sentences and short stories that are built to different difficulty levels and can be accessed depending on the needs of the students. We also are working to include interactive assessments in the applications. ACP’s initial focus is in Haiti; however, the application itself is being developed using framework constructs which means it can easily be reused to support other languages  ACP is seeking grant funding from various organizations to support this program; however, ACP will continue funding the effort internally and through donations.