From Board Games To The Internet, Madison-Based Company Helps Kids Master Skills, Feel Positive

Only five years ago, Annabelle Howard was playing cards and board games to raise the scores of a group of kids in New Haven, all of whom who had scored Below Basic in their first Connecticut Mastery Test, or CMT.

Today, the British-born Madison resident is the creator of a system called The Official CMT League, that she says is currently helping thousands of elementary-aged Connecticut kids master basic skills. The cards and board games have been shelved, however, as Howard has “captured the excitement of youth sports and applied it to elementary online education,” as she explains.

The Madison-based company TestPrepFUN, using online games that blend teaching and test practice to help children improve basic skills,  motivates with live scoreboards and prizes. In September, the company is going national with American Learning League, “which will build a friendly bridge to the Common Core State Standards,” Howard explains.

Each child has his or her own account

Parents can either buy an individual subscription to The Official CMT League, or a school buys a subscription for a group of kids or the entire school. Each child has his or her own account.

“There are thousands of little instructional quizzes that teach skills and scaffold kids toward success. We try to make the kids feel that this is possible and do-able,” says Howard.

Howard, a trained teacher, says research shows that information goes into long-term memory best through quizzes.  Children take these very short quizzes weekly. If they “win” (or answer 70 percent or more of the questions correctly), the win appears on a live scoreboard. 

“The kids are ranked according to how hard they are working,” she says.

Inspiration comes from one of her own children who was struggling with CMTs

The inspiration behind the idea came, in part, from one of her own children who was struggling with CMTs. Howard, too, struggled with tests as a child. “I have a lot of test anxiety and suffered as a result,” she confessed. 

When she became a teacher, she saw the other side.

“We do need some accountability but don’t need to stress the kids out or waste their time. We just need a friendly way to know where they are and what we can do to help them.  I wanted to make a very teacher-parent-kid-friendly site that taught,” Howard said. 

Starting with card and board games

She started with card and board games. “They were okay but very limited. I think the internet is the way to go so I adapted things for the internet,” she said.

The kids liked playing the games but then Howard thought she really ought to motivate them so she created live scoreboards. 

“That’s where the league part really came in and where it really took off,” she said.

“It evolved over three to three and a half years, and constantly going through schools listening to the kids and teachers – what works, what do you need, what’s fun, when do you feel like things are changing for you, and are you feeling more positive.” 

Optimism linked to success at online games

Howard said "research shows that with anybody, not just children, there’s an enormous surge in optimism when you confront an online game. You feel like you can win. It’s just an innate response. Otherwise, you wouldn’t keep doing it.”

The idea “is to make kids feel positive and get all this basic skill stuff off the teacher’s back so she can do something far more creative and interesting and person-to-person with the classroom time.”

The teacher can know which kids are not up to speed, which kids are, and adjust their teaching.

The basic skills can be taken care of in about 45 minutes a week, which frees up class time “to have more social skill building.” 

No plans to expand into SAT prep

Howard has no plans to expand into the world of prepping for the SAT tests, however. 

“My focus has been at trying to catch the kids at the beginning and give them a good shot going on. I don’t want to spread myself too thin,” she says and adds, “Here in Connecticut, for instance, we have the largest achievement gap in the country. We have plenty of bright kids going off to college. That’s not where I’m drawn to feel like I need to help. It’s all the kids failing in grades 3, 4, 5 that we really need to rush in and help.”

Now that the Common Core State Standards have been adopted in the majority of states, Howard has the opportunity to go national. She’ll start in September with “games that instruct and develop robust vocabularies because that’s what’s really emphasized in the new standards that Connecticut, for instance, doesn’t emphasize. We’ll continue to do TestPrepFUN next year,  but we’ll also make available games on the new site, American Learning League.

• For additional information on the Connecticut website, please visit www.TestPrepFUN.com. 
• To view LIVE SCOREBOARDS, please visit:  http://testprepfun.com/qz/report/most-vigorous-players-I
• To view GAMES:  http://testprepfun.com/Play_Here.htm
• For additional information on the American Learning League, please visit http://americanlearningleague.com/