About Learning Stewards

Learning Stewards is a 501(c)(3) non profit organization with Silver Star rating from GuideStar. Our mission is to advance society’s understanding of learning and the profound role it plays in all our lives. We are founded on the principle that “nothing is more important to our children’s futures than how well they can learn when they get there.” We believe that “stewarding the health of our children’s learning” should be the core principle of educating and parenting. We create educational technology—The Magic Ladder Project and Interactive Orthography—and conduct professional learning programs—The Children of the Code Project and Boot Camps.

History and Current Work

Learning Stewards was founded in 2009 by David Boulton. The organization began as a platform to extend David’s earlier work on learning (see Implicity.org), his educator “Boot Camps“, and to continue the research, public resource dissemination, and professional development / learning work of the Children of the Code Project. In 2015, Learning Stewards began its current focus on Interactive Orthography and the Magic Ladder.

Initial stages of development included working with over one hundred local children, half a dozen Jefferson County Public Schools, and with the Goodwill Adult Learning Center.  With funds provided by the Gheens Foundation, and later the Jefferson County Public Education Foundation, a double-blind efficacy study (performed by Bellarmine’s David Paige) found that even a primitive paper-based version of Learning Stewards’ innovative orthography had “Large Effects” on student gains in reading.

With the core concepts confirmed through field trials, the technology evolved to become today’s Interactive Orthography and was then embedded into hundreds of learning-to-read resources that make up the expanding Magic Ladder library. During this phase, Learning Stewards worked with the Frankfort Independent School District, Kentucky State University, Northern Kentucky University, the Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church, Sowing Seeds For Faith, Backside Learning Center, Americana Center, the Catholic Community Center, and others.

Along with its local efforts, Learning Stewards has also been embedding Interactive Orthography in the websites of a number of 3rd party educational content organizations (like The Hechinger Report, The Story Preservation Initiative, Free Kids Books, and others).  We have also partnered with many individual authors who have generously provided promotional excerpts of their books.

PLEASE HELP US
Learning Stewards is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that depends on the support of people like you.

Please donate whatever you can. IT’S TAX-DEDUCTIBLE

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