UPSTART Utah Preparing Preschool Students Today for a Rewarding Tomorrow

SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Waterford Institute's UPSTART free at-home preschool program is now accepting 2014 pre-registrations for children entering kindergarten in 2015. Parents with preschool age children are encouraged to pre-register immediately. Funded by Utah Legislature, UPSTART provides each preschooler with the finest at-home education through software, hardware and program connection capabilities as needed for no cost to the parent.

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UPSTART is an in-home preschool program that uses Waterford Institute's award-winning software, which teaches children essential early literacy skills at the pace and level of each child. The individualized reading, math and science curriculum, with a focus on reading instruction has proven over time to help close learning gaps that if not remedied early can be extremely costly to public school systems. With research-based programs and a native-language User Support team, UPSTART forms a partnership with parents to ensure their children obtain the education necessary to start them on the path of success in school.

"An external evaluation of UPSTART's year three program shows tremendous gains for the children in the program regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographic locale and whether or not the children had additional preschool education. Growth rates were twice as high as the control group when using the Brigance method of testing, and three times as high as the control group when using Bader. Before preschoolers start kindergarten, UPSTART children most often score at the Kindergarten Advanced level or within First Grade levels," stated Dr. Benjamin Heuston, President of Waterford Institute.

Waterford Institute's software provides children with an individualized, engaging preschool curriculum of reading, math and science. Using Rusty and Rosy Learn with Me as the main curriculum, UPSTART focuses on reading readiness and also uses Camp Consonant a program designed to assist multi-sensory learners and Waterford Assessments of Core Skills which is an adaptive assessment of early literacy for young children.

UPSTART is currently in its fifth year funded by the state of Utah, the program is statewide with more than seven thousand children participating to date. Parents with children in the program are regularly asked to evaluate UPSTART and their children's experiences in the program and every year their evaluations return with exceptionally high ratings. 99.3% felt UPSTART helped prepare their child for kindergarten, while 99.8% felt participating in UPSTART was beneficial. 99.4% would recommend the program to family and friends while 98.6% felt the content was appropriate for the age of their child. Additionally, 98.2% felt that their children enjoyed the software and 99.7% felt that the user support representatives were friendly and knowledgeable and wanted to help them succeed.

To pre-register for UPSTART's free at-home preschool Program, please visit www.utahupstart.org or call toll-free 800.669.4533.

About Waterford

Waterford Research Institute is a nonprofit research center dedicated to providing every child with the finest education through the development of high-quality educational models, programs and software. Founded by Dr. Dustin Heuston in 1976, Waterford uses rigorous research to build award-winning, proven educational programs. Since creating the first educational videodisk, Waterford continues to be at the cutting edge of technology-delivered instruction. Today, Waterford Research Institute is an international leader in early learning software for reading, math and science programs and has reached millions of children globally. For more information, visit (www.waterford.org) or contact 801.349.2200.

SOURCE Waterford Institute