WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hatch®, a leading provider of technology for early learning, unveiled today WePlaySmart™, a research-based content solution for the multi-touch SMART Table™ that provides early learners with an engaging environment to build crucial social and emotional skills against a backdrop of cognition. WePlaySmart is an intuitive tool for social-emotional development, skills that are shown to directly impact long-term academic achievement, and complements Hatch’s proven-effective products for cognitive skill development – TeachSmart® and iStartSmart™ – to round out Hatch’s suite of 21st Century Classroom products for success in early learning.
“Our new WePlaySmart system capitalizes on innovative multi-touch table technology to revolutionize how we teach and monitor the development of social and emotional skills vital to child development and success,” said Ginny Norton, president of Hatch. “WePlaySmart combines leading-edge technology from SMART with the most recent research on social-emotional development to produce an innovative tool that facilitates child engagement in learning, fosters positive peer relationships and provides authentic data over time that teachers have never had at their fingertips before.”
The new WePlaySmart system accommodates two to four children and promotes social and emotional school readiness through interaction during cognitive-skill-based games. The system presents activities across four skill areas shown to be essential for social and emotional development including: behavioral control, social competence, emotional control, and executive function. Each of the more than 275 research-based activities provide fun, cooperative interactive opportunities for children to practice and develop capabilities to make their own decisions, solve problems, and collaborate in a variety of familiar and new environments.
WePlaySmart is designed for pre-readers to independently access the system using a patented photo login and audio prompts for child-directed play. The adaptive learning system tracks each child’s participation and purposefully walks children through the spectrum of social-emotional skills. WePlaySmart includes built-in automated progress monitoring that captures authentic data through periodic audio recordings of actual language and interaction with peers. The system includes proprietary individual and class overview reports to track social-emotional competency, provide unbiased reporting for parent conferences and help teachers and administrators support instruction in the classroom.
Hatch officially unveiled WePlaySmart at the Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC) in Orlando, Fl. on Tuesday, January 24, 2012. This is Hatch’s fourth education technology product roll out during the past 12 months and rounds out Hatch’s suite of 21st Century Classroom products for early learners.
“It is imperative that we make the development of key social and emotional competencies a priority for early childhood learning if we are to overcome the rise of behavior problems in our classrooms and build a successful foundation for our young learners,” said Ginny Norton, president of Hatch. “By obtaining age-appropriate social-emotional skills, children reduce their risk of long-term behavior problems, are buffered against a myriad of mental and physical health risks and are more likely to achieve greater success academically and experience fewer learning problems.”
WePlaySmart Features
WePlaySmart by Hatch features social-emotional skill-building content, records actual audio clips for progress monitoring and provides individual and class reporting, in one comprehensive system:
- Research-based content
- Designed using best practices (real photos, rich vocabulary)
- Aligned with nationally recognized early childhood development standards
- Independent access for pre-readers using patented photo login and audio prompts
- Supports visual, kinesthetic, and auditory learning styles
- Child-directed play in fun, game-like environment for increased student engagement
- Encourages cooperation between two to four children to develop four critical skill areas: behavioral control, social competence, emotional control, and executive function
- Social-emotional activities set against a backdrop of cognitive skill development
- Audio samples capture actual language and interaction with peers for authentic monitoring
- Administrators and teachers can view objective individual detailed reports and class overview reports
- Plug and play - comes pre-loaded with activities, progress monitoring and reporting tools
About Hatch®, The Early Learning Experts:
Since 1984, Hatch has been committed to supporting the needs of students and enriching early education. From classroom supplies and education materials, to interactive whiteboard content, to adaptive learning and mobile technology, Hatch® is the innovative solutions leader and most widely-used early learning technology provider nationwide. Hatch technologies combine child-appropriate hardware, research-based content tied to standards, and individualized progress monitoring tools, to create complete classroom solutions proven to increase math, literacy and social-emotional development. For more information, please visit http://www.hatchearlylearning.com.
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