Lorain-based company ThinkStretch won two awards for its summer learning workbooks.
ThinkStretch Summer Learning won Parents Picks Awards for Best Products for Elementary Kids and Best Educational Products in the World 2024.
Bruce Henson, president of ThinkStretch, said the company made some key updates to the workbooks leading up to the award.
Henson said the company adjusted the curriculum of the books according to national standards for different subjects and redesigned the color.
These adjustments helped the company achieve its goal of knowledge retention for students during the summer, he said.
“The primary purpose of the workbooks is to combat the summer slide,” Henson said. “What happens to students during the summer is that students don’t pick up a book and they’re on their Xbox or playing baseball or whatever.
“The average student loses 1.6 months of academic knowledge from the school year. When kids go back to school, the teachers have to reteach things.”
Henson said the company currently serves 100,000 students per year and works with public schools, charter schools and other organizations like YMCA to get students the books.
ThinkStretch is the second largest company in the summer leaning field, he said.
Henson said the books utilize a six-week program so students still have plenty of time to do other things during the summer.
“It’s a short, very compact book and it has a parent guide that has all the answers for the parents in it,” he said. “When the kids finish the book, they turn it back into their school.
“If they completed 50 percent of the book, they get a bronze medal. If they complete 75 percent of the book, they get a silver medal. And if they complete all of the book, they get a gold medal.”
Henson said the Parents Picks Awards help confirm the impact ThinkStretch is making for students, but the company has numbers to back it up, too.
“We know that we’re making a difference in the marketplace for these students,” he said. “We get about an 85 percent repeat buyers, so if people do it once, they are likely to do it again.
“It’s nice to get recognition that we’re out there doing good work for these students.”
One of the highlights for the company in 2024 is to include a project-based learning kit that will be on different subjects than what the workbooks currently cover.
