Washington, DC — The Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network (HITN) Early Learning Collaborative (ELC) today announced two new tablet-based Pocoyo PlaySets, designed to provide fun and engaging experiences for young children as they develop English language, reading and math skills. The mission of this project is to provide preschoolers with experiences that will help close the achievement gap between economically advantaged and disadvantaged children.
Featuring Pocoyo, the internationally recognized preschool character, the Pocoyo PlaySet applications were developed in partnership with Zinkia Entertainment, S. A., the creator of Pocoyo, and funded, in part, through a Ready to Learn research grant from the U. S. Department of Education Office of Innovation and Improvement. Currently available on tablets and mobile devices, the Pocoyo PlaySets are being developed with the support of ongoing formative research conducted by the Michael Cohen Group LLC (MCG) as well as large-scale summative studies, also conducted by MCG, to assess the educational efficacy of these digital products before their commercial release which is estimated for late 2013. The first two PlaySets, presented today, focus on supporting English language development and early literacy skills for three-to-five-year-old children whose primary language is Spanish.