Your donation will help us produce journalism like this. Please give today.

Ed Source | By Susan Frey

Whether solving math puzzles to help a penguin waddle across a computer screen or sounding out words in Mr. Sounders’ virtual classroom, K-2 students are increasingly embracing technology in California schools.

Mixing academic software programs with traditional classroom instruction – often referred to as blended learning – is moving from high schools and middle schools to the early grades, even reaching some 4-year-olds in transitional kindergarten. Teachers say the programs they are using adapt to the young students’ needs and give teachers time to delve more deeply into the reading and math concepts required under the Common Core State Standards.

“It’s almost like having another aide in the classroom, and they are learning to use technology,” said Cindy Shannon, a kindergarten teacher at Mitchell School in the Atwater Elementary School District in Merced. This year for the first time, she is using the iReadsoftware program recently introduced by Scholastic for K-2 students.

Click here to read the full story.