VocaBiTclassroom: Media release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Garlin Cephas
vocabitbuild@vocabitclassroom.com
Game On! VocaBiTclassroom's VocaBiT Build Vocabulary App Empowers Students' Caregivers
Oakland, CA – September XX, 2024 – U.S. students’ proficiency in reading are on a historic decline. While most educators are painfully aware of this academic crisis, according to a survey conducted in March 2023 by the group Learning Heroes, 90 percent of parents think their children are doing fine academically. Standardized testing, however, shows that only 29 percent of 8th graders are reading at or above their grade level.
While the pandemic certainly contributed to the problem, it’s not the only culprit. Results from the esteemed National Center for Educational Progress reveal that the reading performance of 13-year-olds in the United States hasn’t been this low since 2004.
Garlin Cephas, a retired IT manager turned inner-city-school teacher and principal, has created a family of gamified vocabulary apps that he hopes will change these alarming statistics.
VocaBit Build puts a new spin on building vocabulary through games like bingo and 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe. Unlike the vocabulary-building gamification apps currently available, two levels of the VocaBit Build app—3rd-6th grades, 6th—College offer the opportunity for individual and large-scale competition. Speed up the clock to better a prior performance or vie with hundreds of others in virtual or in-person contests.
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For Cephas, creating a competitive environment, no matter how much kids love that, wasn’t enough. Too many of the high school students he interacted with no longer even dared to dream. There had to be a way for parents or caregivers to help get their children back on track academically, even if they didn’t speak English or have a computer or connectivity at home. So, in 2016, he started working on developing a fun, user-friendly app that parents and guardians could use and even customize.
It's taken seven years, but the Android-version of VocaBit Build has finally launched. The Android apps make it easy to improve vocabulary and other key skills, with no need for phone or Wi-Fi services after the initial install. “By running on current and out-of-service devices, my apps provide remediation support to families who cannot afford phones and related services,” says Cephas. Students’ scored results can be reviewed by the caretaker, or emailed to a teacher or the host of a competition.